The Desert Fox
by the-wandering-scribe
Summary: When Naruto is five years old, he gets saved from death by Anko, who then adopts him. Six months later, she gets tired of the constant attacks on Naruto and takes him to live in Suna. What affect will this have on Naruto's future? COMPLETELY REWRITTEN!
1. A Meeting in the Alley

_The Desert Fox: Reanimated_

_Ok, so before I create any new chapters, I need to fix up what I already have. Looking back over my work, I can see a lot of flaws and room for improvement. This being the case, I've decided to rewrite all of my previous chapters, hopefully bringing a good deal of improvement to the fic._

_Summary: When Naruto is five years old, he gets saved from death by Anko, who then adopts him. Six months later, she gets tired of the constant attacks on her and Naruto and takes him with her to live in Suna._

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Anko glanced at her watch, ten o'clock at night. She was currently trudging home from a long, exhausting day of guard duty when suddenly a ball of spit hit her in the face.

"You're not welcome here you dirty treacherous snake!" the offending person shouted, "Go back to that traitor Orochimaru where you belong!"

Wiping the spittle off of her cheek, she cursed the memory of her former sensei Orochimaru. Her mood quickly blackened and she once again found herself considering leaving as the memories resurfaced of returning to her hometown after being abandoned by her father figure and sensei, Orochimaru, only to be rejected and spat upon. She once again cursed Konohagakure, the village that saw her as an enemy despite her numerous attempts to prove her loyalty, when suddenly she was broken out of her thoughts by a disturbance in a nearby alley. Hopping up onto a building, she peered down into the alley to see what was going on.

When she looked down into the alley, she was greeted by the sickening sight of a mob of villagers, some of them holding makeshift weapons, closing in on a young blond haired boy, clearly intending to beat him to death. She quickly decided to intervene, and jumped down into the alley between the boy and the mob, pulling out a kunai and preparing for a fight.

"Alright assholes," she shouted, "why don't you back off and stop attacking defenseless children. I know that you people get off on making the lives of people that are different from you hell, and I'm sick and tired of it. Take one more step towards this child and I'll kill you where you stand."

Anko looked over the crowd and saw a man point to her and shout "hey, isn't that Orochimaru's snake bitch student? Let's get her too, and rid our village of two dangers at once!" Another man seemed to gather courage from those words and they both ran towards her screaming a battle cry. Anko just rolled her eyes and made a punching motion towards the two, causing snakes to shoot from her sleeves and latch onto their necks. Anko smirked as they clawed at the creatures before she gave the mental command for her snakes to release their poison into the two, causing them to fall to the ground screaming and flailing at the snakes.

Just as the screaming died down and her snakes poofed away, Anko saw three ANBU members jump down into the alley right in front of where she was standing. "What's going on here?" the ANBU on the left ordered.

"Orochimaru's student killed two of our friends and is protecting that demon!" one woman shouted, "you need to get rid of them both!"

"I see," the middle ANBU said, sizing Anko up and taking inventory of the young boy behind her. "So, that's the Uzumaki kid, huh? Stand down, no one is going to attack a kid on my watch. I don't give a damn if the Fourth did seal the Kyuubi into him, he's just a kid."

The ANBU on the left, though you couldn't tell from behind his mask, was in a state of disbelief. "You can't honestly tell me that you are going to give up a chance to get rid of this demon, I mean he killed your brother! I say we end him now!"

The ANBU in the middle, who had on a wolf mask, growled at her partner, "He. Is. A. Kid." She turned to face him, "I will not lower myself to kill a child for something he did not do. Plus, the Fourth Hokage, the most powerful ninja of his time and best seal master next to Jiraiya-sama, gave up his life to use a technique to seal the Kyuubi away; do you not have any more trust in our fallen leader than to doubt his competence and skill?"

Her partner on the left, wearing a bird mask, lost himself to his anger and shouted back "this is the most powerful demon in existence! We have to kill it now!"

Anko was looking on at this display with a mix of admiration, for the wolf masked ANBU, and disgust for the bird. Suddenly, she saw the third ANBU, who was wearing a snake mask, raise his sword, about to kill the wolf. Thinking quickly, Anko drew her katana and charged at the snake, blocking his blow just before it could cut through wolf's skull. "Ninja," she spat, "don't betray their comrades, you dirty bastard."

The wolf masked ANBU turned quickly to see Anko's sword protecting her from a killing blow that would have been dealt from her other partner. "You ass," she said in disbelief, "you actually tried to kill me? I'm tired of this, I will not let you two harm that child. It ends here, byakugan!" The wolf ANBU got into the traditional Jyuuken stance. "Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms"

Anko turned back towards Naruto, checking to make sure that no one had slipped past them, only to see the bird ANBU quickly advancing towards him. "Get back here, fucker!" Anko shouted, launching herself towards him. As she closed the distance, he stopped paying attention to Naruto and turned to face her.

"Don't be foolish," he sneered, "a Tokubetsu Jounin such as yourself couldn't possibly beat me. Giving up now and letting me kill the boy is the only possible way you have of staying alive."

As the ANBU member drew his sword, prepared to attack her if she declined his offer, Anko looked over to Naruto, and she cold see the fear in his eyes. "Please," he begged, "Go and save yourself. You are one of the only two people that have been nice to me, and I don't want you to have to die just because you protected me."

Hearing that bolstered Anko with a more confidence than she had contained throughout the whole incident, and she could feel a grim determination set itself into her. "Don't worry Naruto, I'll get us out of this mess. Somehow."

Putting up her sword, she drew two kunai and slipped into a defensive stance, readying herself for a battle that she knew would be one of the toughest she had faced in her life. Sure she was a good fighter, but this was an ANBU member! She quickly quashed all doubts in her mind; this was a battle she had to win, not for herself, but for the five year old child named Naruto who was cowering in the corner trying to hide from fifty plus villagers and two ANBU. She saw the ANBU charge at her and bring his sword down in an attempt to split her skull, but her eyes held no fear, only determination. She would win, she had to.

The bird ANBU brought his sword down in a vertical arc, which Anko parried with the kunai in her right hand before striking at him with the kunai in her left. As soon as he jumped back to dodge her strike, Anko flashed through hand seals, shouting out 'Goukakyuu no Jutsu', sending a huge ball of flame hurling towards him. Smirking, Anko put away her kunai and once again drew her katana, watching as the smoke cleared, revealing a large wall of earth that stood protecting the bird. "Round two," she muttered as the wall crumbled, sending a large dust cloud into the air.

To her surprise, instead of seeing the ANBU launch another attack at her, she heard a crackling noise. As the cloud of dust settled, it revealed a fourth ANBU member, with gravity defying silver hair and a dog mask, that was holding a ball of lightning where the bird ANBU's head was. As the electricity disappeared and the body fell to the ground Anko breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god," she whispered.

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"Byakugan!" The wolf ANBU shouted as he slipped into the traditional Jyuuken stance. "Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms" Time seemed to slow down as she began her assault, "two" she declared as she thrust two strikes at her opponent in quick succession, "four, eight, sixteen," but as she was about to double the number again and launch thirty-two strikes, the snake managed to dodge and jump out of the attack's range. "Well, you managed to dodge before I completed my attack, but you still have most of your tenketsu closed. Tonight you die."

The snake ANBU sneered under his mask, "oh, please. Before the night's over, you and the child will be laying dead in this alley, and I will be cheered on as the person who killed the demon." Snake shot forward, a kunai in his hand, in an attempt to strike at wolf's chest.

As wolf took a step back to dodge the blow, she noticed something odd about the blade, "Poison," she whispered. She took a step forward, aiming a strike at his head, and smirked when he jumped back to avoid being struck. Suddenly, a second Wolf ANBU appeared behind the snake ANBU and struck him in the spine with a Jyuuken strike. Shocked, he went wide eyed and gasped, "h-how?" As he fell down, wolf dealt him a blow to the heart, killing him instantly.

"Just because I'm a Hyuuga doesn't mean I actually intend to listen to their stupid laws. I learn what I want, clan laws be damned." The shadow clone disappeared and wolf walked back to the back of the alley, arriving in front of Naruto just as the Hokage arrived with his ANBU. Wolf knelt down to Naruto's eye level and pulled up her mask to reveal a Hyuuga with brown hair that looked to be fourteen, "so, how you doing Naru-chan?"

"I'm doing good now that you and that other lady came and saved me, Kyo-neechan." Naruto frowned back up at the girl in front of him, "only thing is, the orphanage kicked me out today, so I don't have any place to stay again. Why do they treat me like this?"

The girl, now identified as Kyo, sighed, "I guess it's time you knew now, but I can't tell you here. Look at my eyes." As he did, she cast them both into a genjutsu and they appeared in the living room of a cabin. Up against the wall in front of them was a fireplace,providing the only source of light in the room. In front of the Fireplace stood a glass table in the shape of an oval, and on either side of the table, where the points were, was a black leather couch. Kyo sat down on the couch on the right, and Naruto sat down beside her, causing her to pull him on her lap. "Oh, come on Naru-chan, you know whenever we come here I like you to sit on my lap. Not afraid to sit on your big sister's lap are you?"

"No, of course not," Naruto defended.

"Anyways," Kyo continued, "about five years ago, Konoha was attacked by the nine tailed demon, Kyuubi no Kitsune. Unlike what people may say, a demon as powerful as Kyuubi couldn't be killed, so the Fourth Hokage had no choice other than to use a forbidden technique that summoned the Shinigami to seal Kyuubi inside of a newborn baby. That newborn was you."

Naruto looked up at Kyo with tears in his eyes, "so that's why everyone hates me, because I'm a demon? Why has no one ever told me?"

Kyo sighed, "That is why everyone hates you, but you are not a demon. You are only the container of the Kyuubi. As for why no one ever told you, the Third Hokage made a law that anyone too young to remember the incident themselves was not to be told about what really happened to the Kyuubi, on pain of death." By now Naruto was quietly sobbing into her chest, and Kyo just rubbed his back comfortingly. She looked out of the window to see what was going on in the outside, and the Hokage as well as Anko and the dog ANBU could be seen walking toward the two of them in slow motion. She sighed, "I'm sorry things had to turn out like this for you. The Fourth Hokage actually asked that you be treated like a hero, but the people were too shortsighted and let their fear and hatred run away with their sense."

They just sat there like that, until finally Naruto stopped crying and broke the silence, "what am I going to do for a house though?"

Kyo thought about it for a moment, before finally answering, "well, if nothing else then I can let you stay in my room. You'll have to hide whenever you hear someone coming though, like last time, because my uncle doesn't like you. We'll talk with the Hokage about it, though."

Naruto smiled, "thanks neechan."

Kyo looked out of the window again, and saw Anko, the Hokage, and the ANBU looking down at them, and frowned. "Naru-chan, we may have some visitors soon, I think they've found us. Are you ready to go back yet? We don't have to if you don't want to."

Naruto sniffled, "I don't think I'm ready yet."

Kyo smiled, "we'll stay here then."

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_On the outside._

"What's wrong with them?" Anko asked.

"Well," the dog masked ANBU member said, "they appear to be trapped in a genjutsu. Hokage-sama, would you like me to break the genjutsu?"

The Hokage frowned, "no, I want you to enter the genjutsu and see what's going on. It's strange that she would defend Naruto and then put him in a genjutsu, and that looks to be a strong genjutsu too."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." The dog ANBU pulled up his mask to reveal the face of Hatake Kakashi, who then opened his sharingan eye. As he entered the illusion, he found himself standing in front of a log cabin. A sign on the door read 'Keep Out, No Visitors Welcome.' He looked around and saw the cabin was in a snow filled meadow that was surrounded by a far off circle of trees marking the line of a forest. Looking back at the door, he tried the door knob, only to have it fall off. Looking back to the sign on the door, he had to do a double take, for it now read, 'Keep Out, NO Visitors Welcome. THAT MEANS YOU KAKASHI!' Frowning, he used his sharingan to force the door open and walked inside.

When Kakashi walked inside, Kyo was sitting on the couch, rubbing the back of a sleeping Naruto. Kyo glared up at Kakashi, "I told you to stay away, Kakashi. What do you want?"

"I was asked by the Hokage to check on Naruto-kun because you put a genjutsu on him." Kakashi walked over to the vacant couch and sat down, "and I intend to stay here until you are ready to leave."

"Kakashi," Kyo started in a dangerous tone of voice, "when we leave, you will NOT tell the Hokage about anything you saw here. If you must, tell him that we came here to talk in peace about what had happened to him, but if I find out you told him anything more than that, I swear I'll burn your entire Icha Icha collection and then castrate you."

Kakashi gulped and nodded, "sure, but why?"

"This is a private place that me and Naru-chan come to whenever he's down or needs to talk, and you're the only other person ever to see it."

Kakashi nodded again, "Ok, I understand. It's nice to see someone that actually cares for Naruto."

Kyo sighed, "Well, since Naru-chan is asleep, I guess it's time to leave. Besides," she said looking out the window, "I think they're starting to worry." Kyo picked Naruto up bridal style and walked to the door, before looking back to Kakashi, "You coming?" As she walked out the door, her and Naruto awoke from the genjutsu.

As the genjutsu ended, Naruto's eyes closed and he fell onto Kyo. She smiled, before picking him again, and he unconsciously snuggled in closer to her, causing her to giggle.

The Hokage frowned at her, "what was that about? What happened to Naruto?"

Kyo's smile dropped from her face as she looked towards the village's leader, "Me and Naruto were just having a talk, and don't worry, he's just asleep. He's had a long day."

The Hokage nodded slowly, "Anko, Kyo, Kakashi, report to my office immediately; we need to sort out what happened here today."

Once they all arrived in the Hokage's office, the Hokage told them to sit down. Anko and Kakashi sat down in front of his desk, while Kyo opted to take the couch towards the back of the room, laying Naruto across her lap with his head on the arm rest.

"So," began the Hokage, "tell me what happened."

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_An hour later._

Anko interlaced her fingers and slammed her elbows down on the Hokage's desk, "so let me get this straight, you're telling me that everyone in the village has made Naruto's life a living hell even though he's the one that is keeping us safe from the Kyuubi AND they regularly try to beat him to death?"

The Hokage nodded and muttered, "I'm getting too old for all this shit."

"And You," Anko turned around and faced Kyo, "are telling us Naruto got kicked out of the orphanage today and has no place to live now?"

"More or less," Kyo said, conveniently forgetting the fact that she had offered him a place to stay if no one else could find room for him.

Right at that moment Naruto stretched and yawned, "morning nee-chan."

Kyo smiled at him, "Morning Naru-chan."

Naruto looked around, "where are we?"

"We're in the Hokage's office, Naru-chan. So, you sleep good?"

"Yup," Naruto grinned at her.

The Hokage smiled to himself, _well, I guess I was wrong about doubting her in the alley; Naruto- kun seems to be happier when he's with her than I've seen him with anyone else. I wonder why I've never seen those two together before though. _

While all of this was happening, Anko appeared to be in deep thought. After a moment, she called to Naruto, "hey Naruto, how would you like to be adopted?"

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, shocked that someone would make that offer to him.

"You know," Anko clarified, "I could adopt you and become your mother."

Naruto looked at Kyo with a questioning look, and she smiled at him and nodded. Naruto turned back to Anko, "you'd really adopt me?" he asked.

Anko winked at him, "believe it."

"THAT'D BE AWESOME!" he shouted, practically deafening everyone in the room, except for Kyo, who knew Naruto well enough that she knew to cover her ears first. Then he softly added "Believe it" to the end.

The Hokage looked at Anko with a surprised look, "are you sure it's a good idea for you to adopt him?"

Anko spun around to face the Hokage, a vein popped up on her forehead, and leaned in closer to him. "Are you saying," she said in a falsely sweet voice that promised death to all who answered wrong, "that I wouldn't make a good mother?"

The Hokage gulped and seemed to shrink into his seat, "no, it's just that -"

"Great," Anko interrupted, "then get me the paperwork and we'll be done with the deal."

Kyo laughed at Naruto's amazed expression and ruffled his hair, "see, Naru-chan, looks like everything is going to be all right for you."

"Yeah, isn't it great?" Naruto replied.

"Alright," the Hokage said as he pulled out a folder and gave it to Anko, "all the necessary paperwork is in here."

After Anko finished filling out the paperwork, Kyo got up to leave, "see you later Naru-chan." She turned to Anko, "Take good care of Naruto," she said in a good natured voice, but the look in her eyes carried the threat _'or else'._

Anko flashed her a smile, "don't worry, I will."

Thirty minutes later, Anko turned the key to her apartment, and her and Naruto walked inside. As they walked into the kitchen, Naruto's stomach growled.

"Hungry?" Anko asked, going to the refrigerator and pulling out cereal and milk, then pulling out two bowls from the cabinet.

"I'm starving," Naruto replied, putting a hand over his stomach. After they finished with their cereal, Anko took him into the bedroom and pulled a white t-shirt out of her dresser for him to wear to bed.

"I only have one bed, so you'll have to sleep with me," Anko called to him. As he finished changing and climbed into bed, Anko put her arm around him, "tomorrow we have to go shopping for some stuff for you, Good Night."

"Good Night," Naruto replied as he drifted off to sleep.

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_A/N:Well, that's all for now folks,but before I go, I should explain one thing. You may be wondering why Kyo acted like she didn't know Naruto if she's like his sister. Well, her acting like she didn't know Naruto is the main reason that she is able to help him in the first place. If word got out that she was a 'demon sympathizer' people that hate him, such as the council or higher ups in ANBU, may try to keep her away from Naruto so she couldn't help him. It also doesn't help that her uncle, the Hyuuga clan head, hates Naruto as well._

_As a final note, I'll be leaving the old chapters up until I replace them with revised chapters, but the old chapters may not completely make sense to you if you haven't read the original chapter, so read with caution. You'll be able to tell the difference between an old chapter and a new one because in the bottom right box, the new chapters will all have names while the old ones will just say "2. Chapter 2" or something like that._

_The-Wandering-Scribe_


	2. The Last Straw

_The Desert Fox_

**I don't own Naruto, etc, etc.**

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Anko smiled as she woke up and looked down at Naruto, who was still asleep. Being careful not to wake him up, she climbed out of bed, got dressed, and headed out to the kitchen to make some breakfast for her and Naruto. She dug around the refrigerator for a while, trying to figure out what to cook, before she finally decided on eggs and toast. She pulled out the carton of eggs from the fridge, and a pan from the cabinet before going to the stove to begin cooking.

As the eggs were finishing up, Anko put four slices of toast in the toaster and poured two glasses of milk. She had just finished putting the food on the table when she heard Naruto coming out of the bedroom. "Hey, Naruto-kun," she greeted, "come on over and grab a plate. Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yup, sure did," Naruto said as he sat down and took a bite of his egg, "the food tastes really good Miss Anko."

Anko smiled at the last part and ate a slice of her toast as she thought of a reply. "Since I did adopt you, how about just calling me mom?"

Naruto's eyes started to tear up and when he couldn't contain his excitement anymore he launched himself onto her and pulled her into as tight of a hug as his tiny arms could manage. "Thanks, you're the best. I've never had a mother before."

"Watching this little display made some unknown emotion swell in her chest, but it was quickly replaced with sadness for the boy when he reminded her that he had been without a mother for the first part of his life, and all she could think to do was hug him back and assure him that things would be better from now on.

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After breakfast was finished, Anko took the dishes over to the sink to wash them. While she washed, Naruto sat and waited patiently at the kitchen table for her to finish, and once she was done, they both left the house to go buy some new clothing for him. On the way to the store, Anko and Naruto just talked an got to know each other better. They were so caught up in their conversation that they didn't even notice all the glares they were receiving and, because of this, were able to have an enjoyable walk for the first time in Naruto's life and the first in a long time for Anko.

"Well, here we are," Anko announced as they arrived in front of a clothing store that was popular among the ninja population. "Anyways, Naruto," Anko began, but stopped as she noticed that Naruto had suddenly disappeared. Looking around, she found him hiding behind her leg, but before she could ask him why he was hiding, the shopkeeper stormed up to the two of them.

"Hey, get out of here you demon, we don't allow-" he started, but was cut off when Anko slammed him against he wall hard enough to leave an indent.

"Say another word," she began, holding a kunai to his neck, "and I promise you that you won't live to see another day." She then dropped him onto he floor and walked back to Naruto, taking his hand and walking out of the store. "Come on Naruto, lets go. I know the owner of a shop down the street that won't act like a jerk."

After leaving the shop, it was only a ten minute walk before they arrived at the shop owned by Anko's friend. They walked in and Naruto, once again, went back to his hiding place behind Anko's legs. Anko put a hand on his back and brought him back to her side. "Don't worry, Naruto," she comforted, "these people are nice, I'm sure they won't try to kick you out too." Her words seemed to relax him a little bit, but he still looked around to make sure no one was closing in on him. Anko noticed this and sighed, it seemed this would take a little longer than she had thought; the villagers must have really scarred him for him to always walk around afraid like this.

"Hey Anko," the shopkeeper called, "what can I do for you today?" He then noticed the small kid walking next to her, "well hello there, who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Naruto" Naruto answered.

Anko turned to face the shopkeeper, "hey, I'm here to get some clothes for Naruto, and preferably ones that aren't orange."

The shopkeeper stared at Naruto, sizing him up for a minute, before flipping through a notebook. "We have plenty of pants that will fit him, but the smallest size in shirts we have is one size too big for him. Is that alright?"

"Sure," Naruto answered, "I don't mind if the shirt is a little big."

"Well, follow me then and we'll get you some clothes," the shopkeeper replied and they both disappeared to the back of the store. Anko waited patiently, and soon they came back out, Naruto holding crimson, black, and midnight blue shirts and dark gray and black cargo pants. "As with all of our clothing, these are heat resistant, so you won't run the risk of overheating in hot environments, flame retardant, an cut resistant." As the shopkeeper explained what all the clothes could do, Anko took the clothes and went up to the register.

"Hey dad," a young girl about six years old called out as she ran out from the back room of the store, "I finally learned how to make a proper kunai! Mom saw it and said it looked good." As she came towards the front of the store, she noticed Naruto standing there, waiting on Anko to finish buying some clothes. "Naruto-kun," she excitedly called, tackling him and wrapping him in a hug, "where have you been? You said you'd practice kunai throwing with me, and when you didn't come I checked with the orphanage but they said you didn't live there anymore."

Naruto sheepishly scratched the back of his head, "sorry about that, ten-chan, but I kinda forgot after the orphanage kicked me out."

The little girl (Tenten, as you've probably guessed) gasped as she got up off of him, "you were kicked out? Where are you going to stay now?"

"Don't worry," Naruto replied, getting up as well. "Ms. Anko's going to be my mom now, so I live with her. She adopted me last night."

"That's so cool," Tenten said, "you still want to practice with me?"

"Sure," Naruto answered, "I'd love to." And with that decided, they both went out into the yard that was behind the shop to practice with their kunai."

Anko looked on at the little display with a smile on her face, "well, it seems that Naruto has a couple of friends at least. So how long have those two been friends?"

The shopkeeper looked at Anko with the remains of a surprised look on his face, "You know, I've never seen those two together before, even though I'm her father. By the looks of things though, they've been friends for all their lives."

Anko chuckled, "that doesn't surprise me, after all Naruto seems to be terrified of most of the adults in the village. After all, most of the people who know about him can't tell the difference between him and _it_."

The shopkeeper smiled, "so she promised him she wouldn't tell me or her mother about him, that way we wouldn't try to keep them from being friends. So that's it, is it? Makes since, especially since she doesn't have that many friends around here."

"Hey, I have an idea," Anko said, after a bit of thinking, "how about I could teach Tenten and Naruto ninjutsu, and you could teach them both how to use different weapons."

"Really," the shopkeeper asked, and when Anko nodded he grinned, "sounds like a good idea to me."

"Good," Anko replied, "we can ask them if they want to do it when they come back in from their practice."

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"Alright, I'll go first," Naruto announced as he threw a kunai at a human shaped target, missing it completely. "Aw, man, that didn't even come close."

"That's because you aren't holding it right," Tenten corrected, "you have to hold it like this. And throw it like_ this."_ She pulled a kunai out of a pouch on her leg and threw it slowly at the target, nailing it in the throat.

"Wow, your good," Naruto replied, pulling out a kunai. "Okay let me try now. Ok, lets see. Hold it like this," he said as he got into a loose stance, "and throw it like this." He threw the kunai and nailed the target in the stomach. "Yeah, I got it!" he cheered, jumping up and down.

"Okay, try to hit them in the arms now," Tenten instructed, "it's a harder place to hit so we'll get better at throwing, plus if you disable their arms they can't attack you."

"Wow, you're good at this," Naruto complimented, "you must have to practice a lot to be able to know as much as you do about weapons."

"No, not really," Tenten admitted, "I just like weapons, so I can learn how to use them quickly. Of course, since I do like weapons I spend most of my free time practicing with them."

"Well, I don't think that I'm cut out for this kind of fighting," Naruto complained, "I'd much rather fight close ranged battles."

"I know, but you have to know how throw a kunai to become a ninja," Tenten reminded.

"Oh, fine, fine," Naruto pouted, "but lets hurry up, that way we can get to fighting with kunai."

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_An hour later._

"Hey, you two," Anko called to Naruto and Tenten as they came in from their practice, "how would you like for the two of us to teach you ninjutsu and the finer arts of weaponry?"

"Really?" they both asked at the same time, to which Naruto quickly added "that'd be great!"

"When would you like to start?" the shopkeeper asked, after clearing his throat to draw the room's attention to himself.

"How about tomorrow?" Tenten suggested.

"Alright," he replied, "tomorrow it is. But first, Naruto needs a weapon, so think about it and let me know your choice by tomorrow."

Naruto nodded and scanned the room, looking at the weapons on the walls, before quickly making his choice and pointing at one of the weapons on the walls. "I want that one."

"The Nunchaki?," the skopkeeper asked, as he went over and took the weapon off of the wall and gave it to Naruto. "Interesting choice for a weapon. Consider this a gift from me, and I suppose that I'll see you two tomorrow. Meet me here, an hour before the shop opens for your first lesson."

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_Six Months Later_

Anko walked home, thinking over the past six months she had spent with Naruto. The kid had really grown on her, and that was saying something. Now she had trouble thinking of what life would be like again without Naruto with her. He also showed a lot of potential, and he had perfected his aim with the kunai as well as being able to fight hand to hand with it, he had learned the basics of using his weapon, and he had learned the tree climbing exercise. Plus she had him wearing ten pound weights around his arms and legs. Needless to say, she was proud the kid had made it so far when most other kids would just be fresh out of their diapers.

Their time hadn't been completely good though, even though it wasn't his fault. On his sixth birthday, he hadn't wanted to come out of his room all day. When she had finally got him out of the house, they'd been attacked by another mob. She was getting sick and tired of having Naruto get attacked every two weeks by some brainless group of ingrates. It had gotten so bad that she'd had to have seals put into the house so that whenever someone broke in a seal on her arm would get... warm.

"Shit," Anko hissed, channeling chakra into her forearm to shut off the seal as she raced towards her apartment. Three minutes later she walked through the already open front door into the house. Already she could see a broken lamp and a flipped table with three kunai embedded in it. Silently, she crept through the house, eventually coming to Naruto's bedroom to find three chuunin, one of which was dead thanks to a booby trap she had set and shown Naruto how to activate, one of which was pulling a kunai out of his side, and the third of which was raising a sword in preparation to cut off Naruto's head.

In the time it took most people to blink, Anko had drawn her sword and cut the chuunin's head off before continuing her swing around and stabbing the other one through the heart. Anko then bent down and checked naruto to see if he was okay. He was knocked out, but other than that he was fine. She didn't want to think about what would have happened if she was even one minute later than she was. It was getting to the point where she couldn't even leave the house anymore without worrying for her son's safety. It was at that point that she decided she wasn't going to take it any more. Instead of gambling her son's safety every time she left the house, she was going to find somewhere where they could live in relative peace. Picking Naruto up, she set out for a new destination.

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Naruto woke up in what appeared to be a sewer. Looking around he couldn't see anything but pipes and water. He walked down the tunnel until he came to an area where another path branched off from the original. For some reason he felt like he should go down it, so he did. He walked down it until it terminated at a giant steel cage door. The room behind it was dark, so he couldn't see what was in it.

Just then a huge pair of eyes opened up and looked down upon him. "Who dares disturb my sleep? Oh, it's just you, brat. So I suppose you want to know who I am and what you're doing here?"

"You," Naruto started pointing at him, "you're that damn furball Kyuubi! That means I'm... inside myself?"

"So, even a brat like you has heard of my greatness," the giant fox laughed. "Yes, you are inside of you're head. You were brought here after you lost the fight to those two other pathetic humans."

"Shut up you stupid puffball," Naruto shouted at him, "you're the reason I'm in this mess in the first place. You've got no reason to be acting so high and mighty! If you haven't forgotten, you're sealed inside of _me_."

"You've got some guts to stand up to me, brat," the Kyuubi replied, laying down in its cage. "You are right; however, even though this may be my doing, it isn't my fault. My one weakness is the cursed eyes that your kind calls the Sharingan. The one called Madara Uchiha used those accursed eyes to control me, driving me into a rage and sending me to attack Konoha."

"So, it wasn't really your fault?" Naruto hadn't considered this possibility before, that the Kyuubi himself might have been overpowered. It somehow seemed against the very laws of nature that a human should have been able to do that to him. Those Uchiha did have freaky eyes, though, so he wouldn't have put it past them. He'd seen firsthand what they could do. "Right, so if I ever see this 'Madara' guy, I'm going to punch him in the nose for you."

This made the Kyuubi start laughing. "I like you, kid, you've got guts, but if you ever meet him, pray that he lets you live long enough to run. Anyone who can do that to me is much too powerful for a runt like yourself."

Naruto grumbled at being called a runt, but he had to admit that the Kyuubi had a point. "Okay, so is there anything else I should know?"

"Not at the moment, kit," the Kyuubi replied, "but it is time for you to awaken."

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The Hokage sat behind his desk, wondering how there could possibly be so much paperwork to take care of, when he heard a loud noise in the lobby. It sounded so chaotic down there, he wondered if Konoha was being invaded. Then he heard someone scream and a crash. Whatever it was, he could hear it getting closer. Then the door flew open and off the hinges and revealed Anko, and boy was she pissed.

The Hokage wondered for a moment if he should take cover, but then figured it was too late for that anyway. "Is there something wrong, Anko?"

"You're damn right there's something wrong! I'm tired of always having to worry for our safety, and I won't put up with it any more! I refuse to protect a place that tries to kill me and my son every two weeks for no reason at all." at this point Anko reached up and ripped off her headband and threw it down on the desk, "I quit." Anko then spun around and walked out of the room, leaving a shocked and confused Hokage behind, wondering what had happened.

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Anko left the Hokage's office to see that Naruto was starting to wake up on the couch she had set him on. She walked over to him and pulled him up. "So, how are you doing, kiddo?"

"My head hurts," Naruto complained, "but other than that I'm fine. I would have done better if the third guy hadn't crept up on me."

"Naruto," she started, more quietly as she led him out of the office, "I've decided that we're going to move out of Konoha. It's been my home all of my life almost, but it's too dangerous for us here. I hear that our allies in Suna have nice weather this time of year. What do you think?"

"I'll go if you want to," Naruto agreed, "but first I have to tell Kyo that I'm going to be leaving. I can't leave without saying goodbye to her first. Oh, and we have to tell Tenten and her dad!"

"Okay," Anko said, "but do you know where she is? We don't have a lot of time before someone comes looking for us."

"Yeah," Naruto replied, "she should be training today. She usually trains in that area by the lake, with the memorial rock nearby it."

"Okay," Anko said, picking Naruto up and taking off towards the training ground as fast as she could. Once she got there and saw Kyo training, she set Naruto down. "Don't be long."

"Kyo-nee-chan," Naruto called, running over to her. "I need to talk to you for a moment."

"What's up, Naru-chan?" Kyo stopped her training immediately and went over to Naruto. For him to stop her training instead of stand there watching her until she was finished, something big must have happened.

"I was attacked again today," he said sadly, "but mom says that we're leaving Konoha."

"Leaving?" Kyo asked, shocked. "Are you alright with that? You have been living here all your life, after all."

"I- I'm really going to miss you," Naruto started, "but if mom thinks it isn't safe for us here, I guess I should go."

"Okay," Kyo said, hugging him. After she let go of him, she got up and walked over to Anko.

"Where are you two going?" Kyo's voice was completely serious as she spoke to Anko, a tone she usually reserved for her subordinates or for prisoners.

"I think I'm going to take him to Suna," Anko replied, crossing her arms. "After him being attacked every other week, I don't think he'll live to be a gennin if this keeps up."

"I understand," she said, a tinge of sadness entering her voice. "Let me at least send a clone along with you guys to make sure that you get there safely." She didn't wait for Anko's approval before she ran through a short string of hand seals and whispered "Tsuchi Bunshin no Jutsu."

"We need to leave now," the clone said, "I sense three high level people coming this way."

"We still need to see Tenten-chan, though," Naruto protested.

"Don't worry about it," the real Kyo said, "I'll go tell her. If you want to leave, though, you have to move now."

"Hop on my back, Naruto," the clone said, bending down. Naruto reluctantly agreed, and as soon as he was on her back, the clone took off, not waiting for Anko, who was only a moment behind her. Kyo shrugged and went back to training, so she wouldn't look suspicious when the three that were coming her way got there.

"Kyo-san," three nondescript ninja, most likely whatever ANBU were assigned as the Hokage's personal guard that day, greeted. "We are looking for Anko and Naruto. They were seen coming this way; have you seen them?"

Kyo stopped her training once again and turned towards the three. "Naruto? No, I can't say that I've seen them today. Why are you after them, is something wrong?"

"No," one of them said, "but Anko has quit her position as a ninja of Konohagakure, and had made clear her intention to leave with Naruto. Hokage-sama wants us to find them and bring them back to question her about this."

"I see," Kyo mused. "I'm sorry that I can't help you three, but you should get back to your mission at hand. I will speak with Hokage-sama later about this to see what is going on." The three were already gone as she turned and left the training grounds, no longer in the mood to train.

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A/N: That's all for this chapter, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't change much content-wise from the old version of this chapter, but you can see that with Kyo's clone escorting them the fight is going to go a bit differently. See you in the next chapter.


	3. Betrayal Revealed

_The Desert Fox_

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did, deidara wouldn't be dead.**

A/N: I'll be making Itachi a bit older in this story, say about 13 now, because I want him to be in the ANBU already. I'll make him have a slightly different fate from the Naruto-verse. After this chapter the course for him will be pretty much set, but any ideas as to what I could do with him would be appreciated. Also, since I won't be sending Naruto on the wave mission unless you guys decide that you want Gaara to be paired with female Haku, so vote now. (This chapter was rewritten as of 15-October-2009, so votes are still open on this.)

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was five hours since they had left from Konoha and Anko was getting tired, so she decided to stop and set up camp. They had made pretty good progress considering they hadn't planned ahead of time to leave, and they were about a third of the way through the woods of Fire Country.

Anko figured they didn't have to worry too much about Hunter-nin, but she still wouldn't feel safe until they were out of the country completely. She had a bad feeling that even though she wasn't a ninja anymore, so they couldn't mark her a missing-nin, Konoha would send someone after her. Looking down at Naruto, who was talking to the clone of his adopted sister, she could only hope that she was wrong.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Danzo, the head of Konoha's Root ANBU unit, was pissed to say the least; how could they let Orochimaru's apprentice escape with the demon boy, who could be trained to be the root's best weapon, and do nothing about it? Being a man of action, he could not just let this go unpunished.

"You three," he said, while pointing to three of his medium grade roots, "the demon container has escaped with Orochimaru's old apprentice. I want you to retrieve him and kill her. Your code names for this mission will be ink, tree, and hawk. Now get going!"

"Yes, sir!", they all shouted before disappearing to find Naruto and retrieve him.

"Excellent," Danzo mused, "this boy will be my second great weapon. Even though Hiashi wouldn't give me one of his children and those Iwa ninja failed to steal the Hyuuga girl, causing me to miss getting one of Konoha's greatest bloodlines, with this boy I'll be able to take the place of Hokage away from that senile old fool."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

After two hours, Anko figured they should move on even if she was still tired, because it wasn't safe to stay in one spot too long, so she got up and told Kyo's clone that they needed to get moving again.

They ran for the better part of two more hours before three ANBU with the 'Ne' symbol on their masks caught up with them and cut off their path.

"Danzo has ordered us to stop your escape. If you three surrender, we'll only kill Orochimaru's apprentice," the one that seemed to be the leader started, "otherwise, we can't guarantee that the child and the Hyuuga won't die also."

Naruto spat at the three masked ninja, "I'll never give up to you three and let you kill my mom!" With that said, he got down off of the clone's back, allowing her to fight more easily, as he himself got into a fighting stance, pulling out a kunai for whatever it was worth against the ANBU.

"Then you leave us no choice but to attack you." The leader turned to the other two, "I want you two to take care of the jounin, I'll take care of the container."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Anko watched as one of the cloaked ninjas jumped at her, and she pulled out her sword. Cursing under her breath, she prepared for one hell of a battle, and hoped that she and Naruto would make it out of this alive.

The first ANBU member, who looked like he had vines carved into his mask, jumped toward Anko with his sword drawn, while the second just pulled out a pad and used it to summon five black snakes to assist his partner while he was fighting the Hyuuga girl.

Anko cursed again, and blocked the tree mask's sword with her own and threw a kick at him, only to have him block and jump back a bit. Taking this chance, Anko drew blood from her finger with her sword and ran it down her arm, causing three snakes twice the size of the black snakes to the battle field. Using the mental link that all summoners share with their summons, she ordered them to kill all the enemy's summons and wait for further orders.

The three snakes ignored the fact that they were out numbered and sped towards the five enemy snakes. The first of the three launched at the closest black snake and bit into its neck right behind the head, wrapped itself around its body, and broke its neck, causing it to melt into a puddle of black ink.

Anko ran forward and threw a horizontal slash, which Tree blocked with his sword, followed by a sweeping kick and an uppercut. Tree jumped over the kick and leaned back to avoid getting struck with the punch. He brought up a knee to Anko's stomach, but Anko jumped back to avoid it and called out 'Goukakyuu no Jutsu' as she did the hand seals and launched a fireball at him. Anko watched as the fire consumed him and waited for the smoke to clear.

The snake who attacked first was in trouble, because while it killed the first black snake a second one snuck up on it and was about to deal a fatal blow. The black snake came down, fangs bared, ready to inject its payload into the other snake's bloodstream, but never made it because its spine was crushed by a second one of Anko's snakes. Meanwhile the third snake was fighting off two snakes, and was having trouble dong it.

The fire cleared to reveal the scorched remains of a wooden dome. The dome pulled itself apart and back into the earth and Tree ran forward, sword poised so that he could impale her. She dodged left and hacked his head off with one swift motion of her sword. His body fell to the ground and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Anko cursed under her breath and jumped into the air as he rocketed out of the ground where she was standing. She heard a rushing of air and turned around in the middle of the jump just in time to see a tree root impale her through her stomach.

The third of Anko's snakes moved to the left just as one of the black snakes bit into where his head was. It sprung forward and caught its head in his mouth as it was pulling away, crushing it and making the snake melt into a puddle of ink. The snake then pulled back to a safe distance and faced its last opponent. Over with the other two snakes, the snake made of ink was in trouble as both snakes were advancing on it.

Anko smiled as she too poofed away into a cloud of smoke. As soon as the root ANBU member's feet landed on the ground, Anko flew at him from behind and, channeling chakra into her blade, sliced the unsuspecting person in half. Both halves of his body slid apart and fell to the ground.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Naruto and the masked ninja (A/N: I'll just refer to him as Itachi from now on) both stood still, waiting for the other to make the first move. Itachi finally made the first move, moving so fast that to Naruto it looked like he disappeared, and making a horizontal blow aimed for Naruto's neck. Naruto bent his knees and barely managed to ducked under Itachi's sword, retaliating by bringing his kunai in an upward arc toward his stomach.

Itachi jumped away from this and suddenly his eyes under his mask seemed to turn red. Naruto gulped, he knew that could mean only one thing, and he was in trouble.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kyo's clone sighed and got into the traditional Jyuuken stance as the person that had chosen her as an opponent pulled out a pad and started doing something with it. Not waiting to see what he was planning, she flew forward and started attacking him. It took her less than two seconds to land a fatal blow, but he only melted into ink. Looking around, she saw him and three ink lions coming out from behind a tree.

"Are you actually going to fight this time?" She asked, grinning at him. He said nothing as the three lions raced towards her at once, jumping at her. Her grin never left her face as she started spinning, causing a ring of blue chakra to form where her hands were, cutting the three inked cats in half. "I guess not."

Once again, she raced towards her mark, only this time, he did fight back. The fight wasn't easy for her, and each of her strikes were parried and matched with a strike that she was forced to block as well. This might not have been so bad of a battle, but she _was_ only a clone, and she had to make it the rest of the way to Suna with Anko and Naruto before she could let herself release.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Suddenly Naruto's eyes glazed over and he found himself back in front of Kyuubi's cage.

"Kyuubi?"

"I need to tell you something, and we don't have much time, so listen and don't interrupt me, kit. I thought I felt something strange about that boy, he is the wielder of the Sharingan, and probably has the most powerful eyes in the clan since Madara. Basically you're screwed, or you would be if he was actually attacking you of his own will. The other part of what I felt is that he has a seal placed on his brain. If the seal is removed the normal way his memories will be destroyed, but lucky for you I have the perfect unsealing technique, and you may gain an ally out of this ordeal. Now listen for a moment and I'll teach you how to unseal him."

"But I'm not advanced enough to learn that big of an unsealing technique in time, how-"

"Kit, I told you not to interrupt. You only need to learn the proper hand seals to channel my chakra without being in a life or death situation. I'll do the rest."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Kyo's clone sighed as she narrowly avoided another strike, and struck back at the Root member, only to be hit in the chest with a kunai. She grunted as the kunai sunk in, but her skin seemed to melt around him, turning brown, and she struck him in the chest with a Jyuuken strike that she purposely overpowered. He gasped, and crumpled to the ground, dead before he even started falling.

As his hand pulled itself out of her chest, the wound closed and her skin turned back to its regular color, albeit tinted a bit more brown than it had been. She sighed, hoping that they didn't run into anyone else, and looked over in Naruto's direction as she heard a scream that wasn't his.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Naruto slipped back into stance, and prepared to fight again.

"So," Itachi started "you can talk to the fox already, I'm surprised. What I'm not surprised of though is what he said."

Naruto gasped, "you heard what he was talking about?"

"Yes, and I know it to be true, because I find myself without emotions and without certain memories. I ask you to hurry up with the unsealing, so I can get my personality back."

"How can I believe you won't just kill me?"

"Because I could have killed you when you were talking to your prisoner."

"Oh, good point", Naruto said as he did three hand seals that Kyuubi taught him that were designed to channel demon chakra properly, and an orange chakra covered him from head to toe, widening the whisker marks on his cheeks and turning his eyes red.

"Prepare yourself, boy," a possessed voice came from his throat as he began a long string of hand signs. "Nine seal release," he called as Kanji appeared over each of his fingers on one hand and another set between each of his fingers.

Naruto jumped forward and plunged his hand into Itachi's mask, shattering the mask and causing his fingers to come to rest on Itachi's face, completing the unsealing.

Itachi screamed and fell to his knees in pain, shutting his eyes tight and clutching the sides of his head.

Flashback begin

It was his birthday. He was happy, as he was on all his birthdays, but today he was happy because he was to become an interrogation expert. But that was not to happen as he overheard his parents and the clan council discussing to give him to Danzo's root forces in exchange for a greater influence in the council and power when he overtook the Hokage.

He wasn't going to stand around and take this, so he grabbed his sword and ran out of the house, through his window. He ran as fast as he could to try to get to the Hokage, but his family were already waiting for him. Suddenly he felt a jolt to the back of his neck and the last thing he remembered as he fell unconscious was his cousin (she will be about four years younger than him, which will make her Naruto's age in the flashback), who was nearby, screaming his name and running to come help him.

Flashback End

Itachi screamed again, a scream of betrayal and rage, and punched the closest tree to him, shattering it into splinters. Naruto noticed that his eyes were no longer red, but silver, and his pupils were shaped like shuriken. He heard Kyuubi gasp inside of his head and say something like 'I can't believe it, he has a new form of the Sharingan.'

"Where are you going now?" Itachi asked Naruto after he had recovered and the orange chakra receded back into Naruto.

"I think we're going to Suna. My mom said they were allies, so we could move there."

"Once you get there, there's a kid there named Gaara who is like you. I'm going to head back to Konoha, I have some unfinished business to attend to. I'll see you round Naruto, and thanks."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

3 hours later, back in Konoha.

Itachi stood in a tree looking down at the Uchiha compound. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his little brother would be left unharmed and his cousin would be taken with him. He didn't need these bastards in this city corrupting her. He only hoped they didn't alter her memories. Not that it would matter now, now he could just unlock her real memories and show her what really happened. One thing was for sure though, Uchiha Itachi was back, and there was hell to pay.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N: This chapter didn't need as complete a rewrite as the last two did, so you may see some parts exactly the same as they were before. As far as I know, the mud clone can reform after attacks, but I'm not sure to what extent. For the purpose of this story, I'll base it on the 'chakra reserves' the clone has. For the Sharingan, I will be making two 'paths'. One will be the path that Madara took, using death to unlock the higher forms of the Sharingan, and the other is the path that Itachi is taking. Itachi still is going to kill his clan though. Just because he's going on the good path doesn't mean he can't be evil. ^_^

_The Wandering Scribe_


	4. Massacre She Wrote

_The Desert Fox_

**Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I'd be rich.**

A/N: This chapter will mostly be dedicated to Itachi and his cousin. No, this is not going to be an Anko/Naruto fic, Anko is his adopted mother, and yes, something horrible is going to happen to Danzo, but not yet.

**Ages: Naruto – 6; Kayla – 8; Itachi – 13;**

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

{P_reviously: Itachi was back, and there would be hell to pay_}

Itachi jumped down from the tree he was in, and went to each of the four corners of the Uchiha compound, placing seals. After the fourth seal was in place he returned to the front gate, prepared for what he was about to do.

"Hey Itachi, glad to see you back again. Does Danzo send a message for us?" The guard said, but never lived to regret it, because Itachi impaled him with his sword. The man died before Itachi pulled out his sword, and quickly fell to the ground without a sound. Itachi picked him up and carried him inside the gates so nobody would see the body.

Once inside, he put his hand on the gate and whispered "Silence Seal activate." With that done, he turned around and walked toward the main building, yeah, he'd definitely need that silencing seal. He came up to the guard and slit his throat with a kunai. As the guard fell to the ground, he wondered why his father decided to put the weakest people out to guard, instead of jounin who could actually protect the place. Oh well, better for him.

As he entered the building, he activated his Sharingan; with Naruto leaving today, that put all the people who betrayed him the most in the meeting room. As he walked towards the meeting room he almost smiled at what he was going to do, almost. Another chuunin Uchiha waved at him, and was relieved of his head. Itachi remembered him as one of the people there to stop him from reaching the Hokage, and didn't even look back as he sheathed his sword and turned the knob to the meeting room.

Once he entered, his father shot up, and demanded the reason for the intrusion, glaring daggers at Itachi and, unfortunately, looking straight into his eyes. The last thing he heard while he was still in the room was the word "Tsukyomi." Suddenly everything was black, white, and red. He was tied to a pillar and around him was a fire, which was burning him alive.

Then he heard something that chilled him to the bones "I'm back father, and I'm going to make you and the entire clan pay for selling me out to Danzo."

The rest of the council gasped as he screamed and fell to the ground. It was chaos as some council members tried to attack him and others tried to run away. He quickly cast a genjutsu on the disoriented people and they began to cut each other down, thinking they were Itachi. It seemed they even thought his fallen father was him, oh well, it saved him the work. Itachi turned around, wondering how a bunch of fools who couldn't even recognize a simple genjutsu made it into the council, and walked out.

When he closed the door he was confronted by three jounin, who came to see what happened. "We heard screams, what's going on in there? "

"This," he said as he shoved two kunai through the eyes of the two closest to him, and into the brain. The last one pulled out his sword, but was no match for the power of a pissed off ANBU with a fully developed Sharingan. He tried to impale Itachi through the skull, only to have his throat cut open. With those three taken care of, he only had a couple more jounin and about ten chuunin to take care of before he got to the civilians. This was actually kind of fun.

As he exited the main building, two chuunin lighter, he made his way to the training grounds at the back of the compound. He didn't bother to run, because that would have made him suspicious, which was funny considering he was sprayed with blood from his first victims. Half way there he called a chuunin he didn't recognize over to him to 'ask her a question'.

"Tell me," Itachi asked when she got over to him, "who do you serve?"

"I serve the village of Konoha," she replied. "My clan leader demands loyalty to him above all else, but my loyalty is still to the Hokage before all else. Why do you ask?"

"Too bad more of us don't think like you," Itachi said, his voice laden with regret. "I might not have had to do what I'm doing. Your loyalties are in the right place, and for that you will be spared."

"Please," the girl asked, tears falling from her eyes as she realized that the blood on his clothing meant he was telling the truth. "Let me go with you and keep you from killing those of our family who don't deserve to die. Not all of us are bad. Have mercy on those who deserve it."

"Thank you," Itachi said, a tear coming to his eye as well. "If only more of our family could have been like you. I ask you not to hate me for what I'm doing here. Those who would sell their families out to a traitor looking to take over Konoha deserve nothing."

"I- I understand," the girl said. "Those three behind you are some of the few who side with my beliefs. Please spare them as well."

Itachi nodded, simply knocking these three out instead of killing them. It was possibly because he was in Root, but he found it disappointing how a clan that thought themselves so powerful could do so little to him. It went like this, Itachi killing his clansmen and the girl pointing out only one more person to spare to him until he got to the training area. Here three jounin were sparring, and she pointed out two of them that deserved to be spared. Silently, he stalked towards them, and they didn't notice anything off about him until he had knocked one of them unconscious.

"What the hell, Itachi?" the one who was his mark shouted, "shouldn't you go back to your master, Danzo, and stop hanging around here? I don't care what he ordered you to do, you don't hurt your own family members."

Itachi laughed at this, and simply said, "sorry, but I'm here for your head. You've never cared about me before, so how can you call yourself family?"

Itachi laughed again as they immediately started to attack him. He dodged a dragon made out of fire and launched a fireball, which the jounin dodged. The second one tried to stab him in the back, but was met with a puff of smoke, as his clone disappeared and blackness, as he knocked the would-be assassin out. The last one thought he'd take advantage of the distraction and go under ground to get the drop on Itachi, but didn't count on Itachi using a Raiton Jutsu to electrify the ground.

"Well," Itachi started as he looked at the ground, "at least he's already buried."

As he exited the the training ground, he found the remainder of the Uchiha ninja force gathered around him, ready to kill him. He looked at the girl with him and she simply shook her head, which was all the incentive that Itachi needed. "Thank you all for saving me the trouble of finding you. Now we can do this one of two ways," he paused to thrust his sword behind him, and into the chest of a foolish person that tried to rush him. "It seems you want to do this the hard way. Pity."

With blinding speed he launched a barrage of kunai at the group in front of him, catching two. "Come on," he taunted the remainders, "that was just sad. You guys are chuunin and can't even dodge some projectiles?" He sighed, "guess I'll have to teach you a lesson. Lesson one, genjutsu." He cast a paralyzing illusion over the group, "Lesson two, kenjutsu" he rushed forward and sliced off half of their heads. "Lesson three, ninjutsu." He blew a giant fireball at the last few left alive, incinerating them. "Lesson four, dispelling genjutsu." He sighed as he trudged onwards again.

As he made his way to the living quarters to find his cousin, he paved the way in the blood of the shop keepers, leaving any civilian that the girl had told him to keep. He heard footsteps from behind, and turned to see his brother standing there with tears in his eyes.

"Why did you kill them, Itachi? they loved you. they-"

"They sealed away my memories and sold me." Itachi said, his blood boiling again. "You are not the last one left. You choose whether to live your life and learn from their mistakes or whether to vow revenge and end your life against my blade. I can already see it in your eyes though, so run and cling to your hatred. Throw away friends in your search for revenge and live in the worst way possible. And remember this word. Tsukyomi."

As his brother fell to the ground unconscious, after watching his family be killed for three days straight in the illusionary world, Itachi turned and entered the living quarters. He walked down the hall and into his cousin's room. He watched her look at him with confusion in her eyes, and what she said next made his blood run cold.

"Who are you?"

"Don't tell me they completely erased me. Well I guess as close as we were they had to. Let me reintroduce myself then." His Sharingan started spinning as she stared into his eyes with a confused expression, and he snapped his fingers.

She fell to the ground, clutching her head, but after a minute or two seemed to recover enough to get up. She stared at him for a few moments, her jaw opening and closing soundlessly, before she uttered the first thing that came to mind. "Is it really you?"

"Yes, Kayla," he said softly, "I'm back."

At this, she broke into tears and ran up to him, hugging him and crying into his chest. He couldn't understand anything that she said while she was crying, so he just rubbed her back and waited for her to calm down.

"It's okay Kayla, I'm back. Now let's get out of here."

"But what about the clan? Your mother's the only one who wouldn't stop us, and she ran off after they sealed my memories of you away. She said the clan had gone too far and she couldn't stay around Konoha anymore."

"I had to get rid of the clan. A group of people that would sell their own child for power doesn't deserve to continue being around. I left Sasuke and a few others, though, it will be up to them to carry the clan on and correct the mistakes of those before them."

"But... But..." She sighed, "Oh well, I suppose that it had to be done. If they hadn't been taken care of they would have just sold someone else. Lets go, before someone gets here and tries to separate us again."

"Okay. Let's hurry up, if we are fast enough, I can catch up with Naruto and his mother." Itachi turned to the girl that had been following him around, and took off his mask, which he just realized had five finger holes in the middle of it. He handed it to her. "Take this to the Hokage, and tell him that Danzo had the clan killed because they were in the way of him taking over the village. Some of you managed to defeat him, but the body immediately incinerated upon his death. This will bring Danzo's crimes out into the open while protecting the honor of those of you that are left."

"Thank you for sparing us, Itachi," the girl said, starting to cry. "I promise you that you won't regret it."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

_Gates of Suna, a day and a half later._

"So Naruto, I see you made it okay." Itachi called as he walked up to them after he got into the city.

"Itachi? Hey didn't expect to see you here. So, you gonna stay here for a while?" Naruto replied

"Yeah, me and my cousin are going to stay here for a bit; I don't think I can stay in Konoha anymore, because I got into a fight with my clan. Where's the Hyuuga?"

"She was just a clone. She dispersed a few hours ago. Well we're going to the Kage's office to get permission to stay in the village, are you going to come to? Then we can go together."

"Sure, Naruto," Itachi turned to Anko, "hello, my name's Itachi."

"I'm Anko. What happened back there? First you were against us, and now you seem to be on our side."

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that, but there's a good reason. I found out from listening to Naruto talk with his prisoner that Danzo sealed away my memories and personality, and he helped Naruto remove it. I never wanted to join that scum bag, I just had the misfortune of being the wrong person in the wrong place."

"Oh, I see. Well, I guess it's good that I got Naruto out when I did then."

"Yeah, he was going to turn him into a weapon like me. He wanted Hinata, but Hiashi foiled that plan twice. Once when he asked and once when he tried to have Iwa steal her. Now with me gone too, that will push back his plans by at least a couple years."

"Well, at least Hiashi isn't stupid, and I'm glad that you got out. Now shall we go?"

"Sure", Itachi said as he started walking towards the Kazekage's office. Naruto talked with Kayla on the way to the Kazekage's office and they got to know each other, quickly becoming friends. At one point they passed a redheaded kid who was by himself, looking in at all the other kids. Naruto felt sad to see the kid there because he knew how it felt to be an outcast. Itachi saw Naruto looking at the kid, so he walked closer to Naruto.

"Hey Naruto, you remember that kid, Gaara, I was telling you about in the forest?"

"Yeah, why?"

"That's him over there. After we get done with the Kazekage why don't you go and talk to him? I bet that you could become really good friends with him."

"Ok, I'll do it as soon as we leave, thanks."

Once they stepped into the Kazekage's office, the Kazekage looked them over. After a moment he asked them what business they had in Suna.

"We seek residence here and jobs as ninja. Also, I'd like to enter my son into the academy."

"I'd also like to enter my cousin into the academy, and to have a position as a ninja."

"I see. Well, first we are going to have to test you, to find out how good you are. Then we will give you your rank, and after six months of probation, we will instate you as full ninja of the sand. Your testing will be tomorrow and your opponents will be announced then." the Kazekage looked over his shoulder at his assistant, "get these people two rooms to stay in until we can further accommodate them."

After they left the Kazekage's office, they walked off with the assistant, except for Itachi's cousin and Naruto, who at the suggestion of Itachi, went to find the red headed kid named Gaara. After a brief while of searching, the found him sitting on a roof watching the other children play. They went up to meet him.

"Hello, my name is Naruto, what's yours?"

Gaara's sand reacted defensively, forming a barrier between them. "What do you want. Has my father sent you to assassinate me? Why are you talking to me, you're not going to try to befriend me and then hurt me are you?"

Naruto felt a twinge of sorrow in his heart for this boy, he must have been hurt a lot of times to react like this upon someone else speaking to him. "No, silly. I'm not going to do any of that, I just want to be your friend. I saw you sitting over here all by your self and I figured that you could use a friend."

"Really?" Gaara asked pitifully, "My name's Gaara. I'm not used to people trying to be my friends, because everyone here treats me like I'm some kind of a monster." He turned to Kayla, "who are you?"

"My name's Kayla. I just got here with my cousin, and I don't really know anyone here except for him and Naruto, who I just met today. Would you like to be my friend?"

"Okay, I guess that wouldn't be too bad." Gaara looked between Kayla and Naruto, "what do friends do?"

If it wasn't for the sadness of the situation, with Gaara being an outcast and all, Kayla might have done a face-plant. Instead she wondered just how many people had screwed up lives like her and Naruto. She had a fairly good one compared to them, but one could not forget how her own family stole the person who she was closest to in her family and erased her memories.

"Friends talk and play together for one thing, and, well," she paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer, "Friends basically hang out and do most everything together. They are like partners you can count on when the world's against you."

Now, Gaara didn't know the first thing about friendship or friends, but that sounded like a pretty good thing to have. Quickly taking a liking to the idea, he stood up and dusted himself off, "so what should we do first?"

"How about we get to know each other first?" suggested Naruto, "I'll start. I grew up in Konoha, where I was hated by almost everyone there. One day, when I was about to get killed, I was saved by Anko, who is now my mother. I've trained under her for the past couple of months and she's been really nice to me, protecting me from almost the entire village. How about you, Kayla?"

"I'm Kayla Uchiha, and I grew up with my family in our compound. Up until I was five I had a perfect life, and was closest to my cousin Itachi, but then my family sold him as a weapon and erased my memories. He recently came and saved me, returning my memories and rescuing my from my family. That's about all for me." It felt odd spilling her life's story to someone she barely knew, but somehow, she felt a huge weight had been lifted off of her chest, which made her glad to have done it.

"I'm Gaara, and I've lived here my entire life. I've always been shunned and hated, and have been in constant fear for my life. My sand protects me. I thought I had a friend once, but he turned on me and tried killing me too, after seeing how my sand wouldn't protect me when it was wet."

They talked for the next two hours, before Naruto and Kayla left to find their family. On the way toward the hotel, they passed a bunch of people playing with a ball. It felt weird for Naruto not to be made fun of or ran away from as soon as people saw him, but it was nice. Maybe he could live here in peace, and not have to constantly worry about who was going to attack him next.

Just then, Kayla pointed ahead, "there's where Itachi and your mother are staying, I'll race you there!", and without waiting for a reply, she shot off towards the hotel building.

"Hey, no fair, get back here!" Naruto yelled, chasing after her.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Anko and Itachi watched them from their window on the second floor.

"It looks like things are starting to look up. Maybe they will actually be able to live out their childhood after all" Anko observed.

"Yeah, it seems you may be right. I wonder how things went with Gaara" Itachi mused, rubbing his chin. "Well, we better get some rest so we'll be ready for our fight tomorrow. We'll want to be in top condition because we're going to be evaluated."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

_Kazekage's Office_

"It seems that the two young ones with black hair are of Uchiha blood. The blond haired one is strange too, I can't put my finger on it, but if I had to guess, I'd say he is a container just like Gaara," said a man stepping out of the shadows. He was a tall man with short black hair and a scar across his right eye. His eyes were an icy blue and he wore a camouflage uniform suited for the desert. At his right side he carried a shortened katana, and at his left was fastened a huge combat knife with strange markings running down the blade.

"Good work, I can always trust your eyes to pick up even the finest detail," the Kazekage started, "I want you to watch their evaluation match and try to get more information about them then."

"Yes sir" the man said and disappeared in a whirlwind of sand.

"It seems I may be able to make use of these people after all. And just in time too, because our village is losing money due to the lord of the country outsourcing all our missions to Konoha. With the extra strength they will bring I will be able to take care of both of those problems, and as an added bonus the kid may be able to keep Gaara under control and keep him from going on any more rampages. It won't do to have any more of my citizens die. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N: Pretty major change for this chapter, and all the Uchiha didn't get killed. How will this change things in the future?

_The Wandering Scribe_


	5. Suna High

_The Desert Fox_

**A/N: Well, here we are, with another rewritten chapter of "The Desert Fox", after a year and a half of dropping off the map, again. I'll try to make the next chapter quicker.**

Naruto stretched and got out of bed; today was the day he had to show the Kazekage what kinds of techniques and skills he had. Going to the refrigerator, he decided to have a light breakfast before leaving to go see the Kazekage. He took three pancakes out of the freezer, and placed them in the microwave, before returning to the refrigerator to pour himself a glass of orange juice. When the pancakes were done, he brought them to the table and drowned them in blueberry syrup before eating them.

"Hey Naruto," Anko called as she stepped into the hotel room, "we have to go, we're supposed to meet the Kazekage in ten minutes."

"OK, mom," Naruto responded as he cleaned his plate and glass and returned them to the cabinet.

When they arrived at the arena, they saw that Itachi and Kayla, as well as the Kazekage were already there. Anko also noticed a man wearing camo hidden in the upper part of the arena. Checking her watch, she figured they had arrived exactly on time. The Kazekage then stood up and faced them.

"The first match," the Kazekage announced, "will be between Naruto and Kayla. Please step down to the arena and begin the match."

"I see," commented Itachi, "battling this way ensures that he gets to observe us without revealing any of his country's techniques, and he has someone up in the stands analyzing us as we fight."

"Which means we should keep all of our good techniques hidden for now," Anko added.

Down on the arena floor, Naruto and Kayla were just beginning their match. Naruto launched himself forward ready to throw a punch to Kayla's face, which she brushed aside with one arm, countering by throwing a round kick to his side. Naruto brought down an arm to shield himself from the kick and tried to knee Kayla in the stomach. She, in turn, moved back a step to dodge and came forward with an elbow to the head that he stepped into to take before it got a chance to build up momentum. Naruto then grabbed her around her back and wrestled her to the ground. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he summoned a kunai to his hand and held it against her throat. Naruto smiled, "check."

Kayla pushed the offending arm away from her neck with an arm and hooked her hand around his neck, pulling his head closer to her, before tossing the rest of him into the air by bucking her hips and flipped him over her head with a knee. She then rolled over and pushed herself to a crouching position just to the front and right of Naruto. In a single motion, she launched herself at Naruto, pulled out a kunai, caught him with a clothesline, and pulled them both to the ground, with Naruto laying in a headlock with his back to her chest and a kunai pressed to his neck.

"Checkmate," Kayla whispered in his ear.

"Alright, alright." Naruto sighed, "you win. I wouldn't have gone down so easily if I hadn't been wearing all these weights, though."

"I wear training weights too, but don't worry," she said as she let go of his neck, "your pretty good for being that young, even if I am only three years older than you."

As they got up, they saw the Kazekage walking over towards them. "Naruto, Kayla, the two of you did well, even if you only did show off your taijutsu. You will both be placed into the first year of the academy. I would advance you two to the second or third years, but it is important for you to complete the curriculum. The two of you will start your classes tomorrow."

"Yes, sir" they responded before walking off to the stands.

"The next fight," the Kazekage announced, "will be between Itachi and Anko. You can begin the match when you're ready."

Anko and Itachi quickly moved down into the arena and began their fight. Anko started off by flashing through some hand seals and yelling 'Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu', launching a huge fireball at Itachi, which he countered with a fireball of his own. They stood still for a moment, sizing each other up, before Itachi threw five shuriken at Anko, calling out 'Kage Shuriken no Jutsu' and turning them into fifty. Thinking quickly, she flashed through some different seals and called out 'Futon: Diatoppa (wind release: great breakthrough)' (A/n: does anyone know of a good list of ninjutsu from Naruto with Japanese names as well as English?), causing a big gust of wind to knock the projectiles harmlessly away. Anko then pulled out a kunai and rushed at Itachi, only to have him block with another kunai.

Back on the (real) field, Itachi smirked, having successfully trapped Anko in a genjutsu. He unsheathed his sword and used it to remove her head, causing her to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Just then, Anko burst out of the ground and caught Itachi's neck with three of her hidden snakes. She quickly found out that she wasn't the only one to have struck a fatal blow though, as Itachi had his katana shoved through her chest. Suddenly, they both burst into sand, leaving a surprised Kazekage wondering how they learned the Suna Bunshin technique.

After a moment of stillness, Anko and Itachi shot out from their hiding places and began a sword battle. Ten minutes later, it ended in a draw, with Itachi's sword at Anko's neck and Anko's sword at Itachi's heart. Just as the Kazekage stepped down to go congratulate them and assign them their positions, the guy hidden at the top of the arena tossed two shuriken at them, which lodged in their heads, causing them to melt into mud. Shocked, the Kazekage looked around to find where they really were, which happened to be up in the stands talking with Naruto and Kayla. The Kazekage then called them down and proceeded to give them their rank.

"Good job to the both of you, you put on an excellent fight without ever leaving the stands. You will both join the ranks of Suna ninja as jounin. Tomorrow I will introduce you to some of your fellow jounin, and two days from now you will receive your first mission. You two are dismissed," the Kazekage announced before disappearing.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"So," Anko said as they walked through the town, "why don't we go get something to eat?"

"How about ramen?" suggested Naruto.

"Sounds good to me," Kayla answered.

"Ramen it is then. I'll pay." Itachi offered.

After ten minutes of searching, they found what seemed to be the only ramen shop in Suna, which, oddly enough, was called Shadow Cuisine. When they went in, they found two women behind the counter wearing half masks over their face. One of them had tan colored hair, and the other one had blond hair, both spiky and pulled into ponytails.

"Hello, how can we help you today?" Naruto looked around the shop. The voice didn't come from one of the two ladies at the counter; it seemed to come from every corner of the restaurant at once.

"You sell Ramen, right?" Itachi asked, walking up to the counter and sitting down at one of the stools. "I'll take a Pork Ramen."

"Sure thing," the cheery voice replied, coming from everywhere once again. "What about for the rest of you?"

OOOOOOOOOOOO

The next morning, Naruto and Kayla arrived at school about an hour early. The reason behind this was that they still had to speak to the principle and get their schedules. They also wanted to find where all their classes were so they wouldn't have to look for them during the day. When they stepped into the main office they were greeted by the sight of a long haired man with his hair forming a foot long spike in front of his head, wearing a sandy brown suit.

"How is everyone doing this morning," he called into the intercom, his voice sounding like a rock star's voice. "I hope everyone is having a wonderful day today!" About this time, Naruto and Kayla were slowly backing out of the office, hoping the nutcase standing in front of him didn't notice them.

"Hiro, would you stop that, you're scaring the children," the secretary interjected.

"Children?" The man looked up from his microphone, "Oh, hello. You must be the new kids coming to our excellent school. Please, come with me and I'll get you your schedules."

Kayla and Naruto just sighed and followed him into the hallways that housed all the faculty offices. His office was the first one on the right and was rather large, but what was the most impressive thing about it was that there was a wall full of nothing but ninjutsu scrolls. Staring at it in shock for a moment, they looked to each other when the principle had his back turned and nodded to each other to confirm that they were thinking the same thing as each other.

"Well, here are your schedules kids, would you like me to show you to your classes?" Hiro offered.

"No thanks, we can find them ourselves." the two replied.

"I like that, your politeness is a sign of your great spirits. Go on and have a good day kids," the rocker remarked.

"Well, we'll be on our way now," they said before running out of the room and away from him like their lives depended on it. Once they were back in the main part of the school, they compared their schedules. They each had the first class and the fourth class together and they both had five classes. As they went to go find the first classroom, they talked about what they saw in the principle's office.

"Did you see that?" Naruto asked, amazed, "that guy has like a thousand ninjutsu scrolls in there, he must be a ninjutsu master."

"Yeah, and we are going to start learning from them, too." Kayla whispered, making sure her voice was low enough that only Naruto could hear her.

"How?"

"We'll watch him to get an idea of when he isn't in the office, then we'll sneak in and grab a scroll. We'll have to switch the scroll with a fake though, so he won't notice that it's missing." Kayla explained, "I'll take care of preparing the fakes and then you'll just have to worry about getting in and getting out. I'll watch to make sure that no one walks in on you."

"OK, sounds like a plan," Naruto replied, "but how am I going to get the scroll out without being noticed?"

"My cousin Itachi taught me how to use sealing scrolls, so I'll teach you how to make and use them." Kayla answered, "now then let me teach you how to differentiate between different types of ninjutsu scrolls."

_Two Weeks Later_

Kayla leaned over in her desk to whisper to Naruto, "OK, we'll strike after this class is over,when the principle is in the lunch room. When you come out, hand it off to me, then I'll use my Sharingan to memorize it and hand it back to you in fourth period, and you can replace it after fifth."

The teacher paused from his lecture on the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha for a moment, but then continued as if nothing had happened.

"What type of scroll?" Naruto asked in a hushed tone.

"Lightning, C-rank."

"I realize," interrupted the teacher, "that talking about ninjutsu is more entertaining than history, but while you are in my history class, you will pay attention to my lectures."

"I was paying attention," growled an angry Naruto, "the problem is that this lesson is based around a lie made up by the Sandaime Hokage. The Kyuubi was not killed by the Yondaime. The Yondaime had to use a forbidden technique to seal the Kyuubi into a baby because of the fact that the Kyuubi is an immortal being and cannot be killed."

"And how would you know something like this?" the teacher barked.

Naruto started channeling some of the Kyuubi's chakra, "because I'm the one that he was sealed into, and I've been beaten for it almost every day of my life."

The teacher nervously gulped, "very well then."

Several of the kids turned around in their seats. "Wow," one said, "you're pretty normal for someone who has a demon in him. Not like that Gaara kid."

"Maybe," Naruto sadly began, "if you gave him a chance, you'd be proven wrong. Instead of making fun of him and treating him like trash, did you ever even think to befriend him?"

The rest of class went uneventfully, and soon it was time to retrieve the scroll from the principle's office. As soon as the secretary stepped out of the office, Naruto darted into the main office, down the hallway, and into the principle's room.

"Let's see," Naruto muttered, "C-ranked lightning, that's two yellow stripes. Ah, here we are. Wait a second, here's a supplementary section, I wonder what it has in it. Shunshin, that could be useful. I'll grab it too."

Outside, Kayla was talking to Gaara, using him as a cover so she wouldn't look suspicious. She had made an offer to him that if he wanted to train with them he could, and he said he'd train with them on taijutsu, but he wasn't to interested on ninjutsu for the time being. She told him that whenever he wanted to train with them, he should meet her and Naruto behind the school and she'd show him the way to the training area that they'd use. Just as Gaara was leaving, Naruto quickly slipped out of the office and joined up with Kayla.

"Got it," Naruto whispered as he slipped the scroll into her backpack, "I also took one called 'the body flicker technique', so you'll have to make a copy of that one also."

"OK, I'll take care of it and return it during fourth period," Kayla replied, "and don't forget to take the fakes with you when you return the scrolls."

"OK," Naruto responded, waving bye to her as he went the direction his class was in, "see you later."

"See ya," Kayla waved back to Naruto as she turned to head to her own class. She'd go to the library during lunch and make copies of the two scrolls Naruto retrieved, so they would be ready to return by the end of the day.

_End of School, Behind the Building_

"So, where is this training spot you were talking about?" Gaara curiously asked.

"You'll just have to wait until I show you," Kayla answered.

"Alright," Naruto panted, "I'm back and everything went perfectly."

"Nice," Kayla replied, while Gaara just raised his eyebrow, obviously wondering what was going on, but not quite curious enough to ask. 'Well let's go."

With Kayla leading the way, they snuck out of the village and started heading towards a sandstorm in the south. Whenever one of the boys would ask why they were headed for the sandstorm, she just told them that they'd have to wait and see. Finally, they arrived at the edge of the storm.

"Well, here we are," Kayla announced.

"This is just a sandstorm," Gaara observed.

"That's where you're wrong," Kayla responded, before running into it and out of sight.

"Hey, wait up!" Naruto shouted before running in after her.

Gaara just sighed and walked into the sandstorm also. Once they were through, they found that it wasn't really a sandstorm, and at the center was an oasis, complete with a pond and trees.

"See, I told you that this would be a good area to train," Kayla giggled at seeing their amazement at the area, "now then, there are two techniques, one is 'Shunshin', or the 'body flicker technique', and the other is just called 'lightning palm'. I know you said you weren't interested in learning ninjutsu yet, but I think that these will help you out with your taijutsu, so you should probably work with these techniques also."

"OK, I'll learn it then," Gaara agreed.

"Good," Kayla opened a scroll, "these are the hand signs for the lightning palm technique."

OOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N: That's it for the chapter, drop me a review and tell me what you think. The main pairing is going to be Naruto/OC (Kayla). Here's a poll for you:

Who should Gaara be paired with? Your options are Female Haku or any girl from Konoha.

Current Poll Stats:

Female Haku: 5

Hinata: 3

Tenten: 1

The poll will close at the beginning of chapter 7.

_The-Wandering-Scribe_


	6. Pranks and Great Escapes

_The Desert Fox_

A/N: Here we are with the first new chapter in a year and a half. Time flies when you're putting something off, doesn't it? Sorry it took so long, but I got _re_writer's block. Time for the chapter at hand, though. For those of you who haven't already seen, I rewrote the whole story. The plot is the same, but the chapters have been changed and improved. Reread everything, because I posted all the rewritten chapters with this one.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if it isn't painfully obvious from he previous state of the chapters of this story.**

OOOOOOOOOOOO

It had already been a month since Anko and Naruto had left Konoha, and in that time many things had happened for Kyo, including her being briefed on it by the Hokage. She played dumb through the whole incident though, refusing to give away anything she knew about what had happened with Naruto leaving. Also during this month, she had planned and set things into place for her own departure from Konoha.

It had taken her years to locate and steal a copy of the highly guarded document on how to remove the caged bird seal from the Hyuuga library, most of which was spent trying to figure out how to disarm a seal that was in place to automatically activate the seal on any branch member that entered the particular section of the library. Nevertheless, she had finally gotten the scroll two weeks ago, bringing herself one step closer to being able to leave. Getting young Hinata's help in the matter proved to be invaluable as well.

Next, she'd had to contact almost all of the contacts she knew in the administration for a legal way to actually _leave_ that wouldn't mar her name if she were to ever return, but that too she had been able to do, thanks to an agreement set forth in the treaty between them and Suna allowing the trade of ninja between villages for the purposes of strengthening friendships between their nations.

With all that taken care of, that brought her to where she was now, standing in front of the Hokage.

"You want to do _what_?" The aged leader asked her disbelievingly. "You are one of my best and most respected ANBU, what would make you want to leave the village?"

"I realize that my post here is very good," she replied professionally, "but due to certain events that have occurred in the past month, I'm afraid that I can no longer preform my duties to the best of my ability. Also, I'm concerned that a new Jinchuuriki in Suna might be too good an opportunity for some people to pass up, and a post with our allies would allow us to keep watch over him even though he is no longer our citizen."

"So, this _is_ about Naruto, then," the Hokage sighed, knowing that he'd lost, even though he could just deny her request if he wanted to, but that she could retire if she wanted to, since she was no longer under her contract with ANBU. "Fine, I will allow your request, but I expect weekly reports from you on the progress of Anko and Naruto, as well as any threats to our country."

"As you command, Hokage-sama," she replied, bowing deeply to him.

"There won't be any need for that," he said, waving her off dismissively. "Allow me an hour to draw up the paperwork and report back to pick up your assignment scroll."

"Thank you," she said, bowing again and disappearing out of the room.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"You'll have to catch us first," Naruto yelled back to an irate teacher who was yelling threats at them as they ran away from him, all the while clinging upside down to the roof.

"Perhaps it wasn't such a wise idea to do this during school hours, inside the school," Gaara observed, running alongside Naruto.

"Don't worry," Naruto said, grinning, "he won't be able to catch us. In fact, he should be dropping right about--" The three of them stopped running as the teacher fell from the roof onto the empty hall floor below them.

"What was that stuff?" Gaara asked, eying their unconscious teacher.

"Itching powder mixed with a powdered sleep drug," Kayla supplied. "Now we should take him back into his office and clean everything up so he things it was all a dream."

"It's odd to have someone chasing you and actually enjoy it," Gaara stated, dropping to the floor below.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, following him down, "but you get used to it."

"Do you think you can carry him on your sand?" Kayla asked as she dropped down to the floor as well.

"I don't see why not," Gaara replied, stretching his arm out, sending his sand to carry the man like a stretcher.

The rest of the trip back to the office, they crept through the halls, trying to avoid being caught by the principle, who they made a practice out of avoiding in general, and all the more when they were supposed to be in the cafeteria.

"Okay, set him down in his chair," Naruto whispered once they had brought the man back into his office.

"Imagine," Kayla said distastefully, picking up a half empty bottle of sake, "a school counselor drinking on the job." Once they set him down in his chair so he was sleeping with his head on his desk, Kayla emptied the bottle out of the window and put the now empty bottle into one of his hands. "Let's get out of here," she said, turning and walking out of the office.

"Good idea," Naruto agreed, "lunch is almost over anyways."

OOOOOOOOOOOO

As she walked home, Kyo pocketed the scroll containing the details of her transfer to Suna's ANBU division. She had until tomorrow before she had to leave, but before then, she had some business to take care of, namely, her uncle Hiashi. She knew perfectly that he was going to do everything in his power to keep her from leaving, including using the caged bird seal that all members of the branch family were cursed with, but she also knew that nothing he tried would work, because she had recently finished her research into sealing techniques and was able to successfully remove her caged bird seal, with the help of one all too willing Hyuuga heiress. She only wished she had a camera so that she could take a picture of the look on his face when he found out.

Upon entering the gates, she nodded to the branch members standing guard over the Hyuuga Compound. She considered for a moment going and putting Hiashi out of commission right then and there, but that would only give them time to think of a way to keep her trapped here, and she had planned this escape too long to screw it up. Besides, she had a present to give her brother first, and she needed to get it over with without being discovered. She walked through the doors to the branch family house and headed straight for her brothers room. "Neji-kun," she called to her brother, "could you come with me? I have something that I need to talk about with you."

"Okay, sis," Neji replied, getting up from his bed and following her to her room. It was no secret among the branch family that she had noise canceling seals as well as Byakugan resistant seals protecting her room from potential eavesdroppers, so Neji knew once they entered her room that it had to be something important that she didn't want anyone else to know about. "What did you want to talk about sis?" he asked after she closed her door.

"Tomorrow, I'm leaving Konoha and moving to Suna, and I wanted to wish you goodbye first," she stated.

"What do you mean you're leaving?" he asked with a shocked look on his face, "you know Hiashi-sama won't let you just leave, especially since you carry the caged bird seal. Fate has determined that you are going to be trapped here."

"That's where you're wrong, he won't have a choice in the matter," she answered, unwrapping the bandages she kept over where the caged bird seal was supposed to be, revealing it to be gone.

"You removed the caged bird seal?" Neji practically shouted, "how did you do that?"

"It took a lot of time and patience learning a proper way to remove it that didn't involve me dying, but in the end it paid off. Anyways," she said taking out a sealing scroll containing her seal making supplies, "I have a present for you."

"Present?" Neji questioned, his voice filling with hope.

"Yup," she replied, "I'm going to remove yours too. All you have to do is lay down on my bed there."

Once Neji complied, she took out a brush and a bottle of ink and got to work. The initial removal took half an hour and went smoothly. "Now," she explained, "I'm gonna place a dummy seal in its place so they don't know that it's gone. It will also serve the purpose of keeping them from putting any other seals on you, including another caged bird seal."

Once the entire process was complete, she sat on her bed beside her brother and put up her ink and brush. "You wouldn't believe how hard it was to teach Hinata how to do this and get her an excuse to be gone long enough to preform this unsealing on me," she commented.

"Hey, sis," Neji said, turning to face her, "does this mean that you're gonna take me with you?"

"Sorry, Neji-kun, but I can't yet," Kyo apologized, "you're a bit too young to decide you want to leave just yet. I'll be back at your chuunin exams to take you with me if you want to go."

Neji looked down, "well, okay then."

"Neji," Kyo said, lifting his face to look up to hers, "I want you to become strong, okay? Learn all the Hyuuga techniques, learn their weaknesses, and then learn other ninjutsu. Don't let them limit you to just the Gentle Fist style."

"Don't worry, sis. I won't."

"Oh, and Neji? Take care of your sister and make sure that she turns out strong. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been able to do this. If you don't look after her, no one will."

"I'll look after her, sis," Neji said, his voice filled with determination, "I promise."

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"Too bad there actually _is_ a sandstorm today," Naruto complained to Kayla and Gaara, both of whom were in his and Anko's home, which was half of a duplex, the other half of which Itachi and Kayla had, conveniently enough. "I was just starting to get the hang of the techniques. The Shunshin was simple enough, but I don't see how you two can get that lightning hand thing down so quickly."

"Don't worry too much about it," Kayla said encouragingly, "everyone has things that they're good at and not so good at. I'm sure you'll get the next one more quickly. Maybe we'll try something other than lightning."

"Yeah, because it looks like you're a lot better at being _struck_ by lightening than you are at _channeling_ it," Gaara said, grinning.

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto grumbled, "at least I'm not the one who used Shunshin to teleport but forgot my clothes."

"I'm glad that wasn't me as well," Kayla added, "but that gives us an important lesson. If we ever need to get something off of us, we might be able to do that to escape from it."

"I didn't think about that," Naruto mused, "but you are the one who always has the bright ideas, even if you do get them from us. Me being struck by lightening gave you the idea of expanding the lightening hand technique to other areas of your body, and Gaara Shunshining his clothes away for that idea."

"What can I say," Kayla responded, shrugging, "I guess we just make a good team."

"So it would seem," Gaara said, not too happy that his accident was becoming the center of attention. "I feel that we're coming up short in our other areas, though. Our taijutsu is only getting so much better since we have no one who actually knows what they're doing, and we have no genjutsu ability at all."

"You have a point," Kayla conceded, "but until we can find someone who can teach us those things, we have to work with what we have. Even if we don't have any way of learning those two things outside of what's taught at the academy, we've still got a room full of scrolls that we haven't even brushed the surface of yet. I mean, if we even learned half of those scrolls we'd be far above what most people reach."

"So, I guess for now we work with what we have, then," Naruto concluded, "besides, I have a few ideas on how I could use that lightning hand thing in taijutsu anyway." Naruto paused in thought for a moment, then got a grin on his face. "Hey, you think our creepy principle uses lightening jutsu? I bet he could fire it from that spike in his hair like a laser or something."

Kayla couldn't help but start laughing at the thought of their principle going around shooting lightening bolts out of his hairdo. "Or maybe he just got _hit_ with a lightening jutsu and now he can't get his hair to lay down?"

Naruto's eyes got big at this. "You know, if that really did happen, I bet he'd be too embarrassed to tell anyone about it or ask for help! As his students, I think it is our duty to help our principle fix his hairdo."

Gaara couldn't help but smirk at this, knowing that Naruto had found a new prank to pull, and that he wouldn't rest until he had succeeded in doing it. "I don't know how I let you talk me into these things, Naruto, but I will agree that this may be amusing."

"What about you, Kayla?" Naruto asked, turning his head to look at Kayla.

"Well, I guess we could," she answered after a moment, "but I think we're going to have to learn some water techniques first. Right now we don't stand a chance."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

_Konoha, Hyuuga Residence, Next Morning_

"Hiashi-sama," Kyo called out, knocking on the door to Hiashi's study. "I need to speak with you concerning a mission that I received from Hokage-sama."

"Enter," came the cold reply from the other side of the door. When she opened the door, she saw him at his desk, inking something into a scroll. "What is it you wish to talk with me concerning this mission? Is it something concerning our clan?"

"Not exactly, Hiashi-sama," she replied, her tone of voice still respectful. "I was given an assignment that requires my transfer to the village of Sunagakure. He said he had doubts about the safety of our village, and he wants me to ensure that there is no threat to us among our allies."

"Impossible," Hiashi snapped, "he will just have to find another person for the job. There are plenty enough people in our village that can do it. I refuse to let any Hyuuga, much less a Branch Family member, leave this village on any long term assignment."

"I'm afraid I must ask you to reconsider," she said, repressing a grin at what she knew was to come in the next few minutes. "This mission is one that is very promissing, and I would like the opportunity to be a part of it."

"You may be a part of it by finding someone else to take it," Hiashi growled. "Leave my presence. There is nothing you can do that will change my stance on this matter."

"I see," Kyo said, now grinning outwardly. "In that case, I won't ask your permission. I'm leaving immediately for the mission, uncle, and you would be wise not to try to stop me."

Kyo got up as Hiashi started making the hand seals necessary to activate the Caged Bird Seal that was supposed to be on her forehead. "You will know your place!"

"I do know my place," she said as she waited long enough for him to see that his trick wasn't working, "and it isn't here."

"Let me see your seal," he demanded, "why isn't it working?! If you've tampered with it, you're on grounds to be executed under the clan laws!"

"Tampered with it?" Kyo laughed at this, and pulled the bandages off of her forehead to reveal that it was completely clean of any mark whatsoever. "I didn't tamper with it, I removed it completely. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be taking my leave now."

Kyo bolted out of the door, and by the time she was running down the hallway he had already vaulted over his desk and was giving chase after her. Kyo may have been faster, but Hiashi's study was at the back of the compound, so she had a long way to go before she made it to safety.

"Come on, grandpa," she called back to him, serving to further enrage him, "I think the decrepit peasants could run faster than you!"

Even though her life was in danger, and if she got caught she would likely be executed immediately, she was immensely enjoying herself. She had wanted to do this for ages, and this was the perfect opportunity to get back at her heartless uncle for oppressing his brother and the rest of the Branch Family like he did. As she turned a corner, she ducked under the outstretched arm of someone who was leaning against the wall.

"Bye aunty!" Kyo didn't get a chance to see the look of confusion on the woman's face, but an audible crash told her that her uncle had just plowed straight into her, sending them both to the floor in a heap. Kyo only laughed again as she turned another corner and continued running towards the safety that was the exit to the compound.

As she neared the front door, one final obstacle was placed in her way, in the form of a Main Branch member stepping out in front of her, intent on stopping her progress. He slipped into the Jyuuken stance, but she just ducked down and grabbed his legs, flipping him over her back without ever stopping. As she pushed the door open and ran for the edge of the property, she could hear her uncle once again chasing her, but to no use. Within seconds of her leaving the door, she was out of the Hyuuga household and running through the streets of Konoha.

Kyo activated her Byakugan to see that not only was her uncle still chasing her, but two other people from her clan were giving chase to her as well. She grinned, though, knowing that she had already won. She bit her finger hard enough to draw blood and swiped it over a seal on her left upper arm, and in a poof of smoke she was now wearing her ANBU garb, complete with mask and cloak.

Hiashi yelled at her to stop running away from him, but he didn't seem to get the fact that she had no intentions of stopping for him. He was so intent on catching her, though, that he chased her straight into the front gates of the ANBU Headquarters. Kyo called out for help, and within seconds, eight ANBU had descended on Hiashi and the two other Hyuuga that were with him.

"What is going on here?" Kyo looked at the path in front of her to see an ANBU wearing only his armor and dog mask coming towards her.

"Inu-senpai," she greeted, slightly winded from running all out to escape, "thank Kami you're here. I've been given an assignment by Hokage-sama himself, but Hiashi wasn't happy about it, so he forbade me from taking part in it. I insisted that I was going to complete the mission anyway, and he first tried to activate the clan's seal, and when that failed, he chased me down, trying to apprehend me. I fear that if I would have been caught he would have killed me, and if I fought back I would have been executed for assaulting the head of the Hyuuga clan."

"No need to worry anymore," he said in a calm voice, walking past her. "I want the five most senior members to escort these three to the prison block in our Headquarters, two of you to inform the Hokage and Council of what has transpired here, and one of you to inform the next in charge of the Hyuuga household."

"Do you wish us to treat this as a covert detention?" One of the ANBU asked.

"No," Inu replied, "whatever bad publicity the Hyuuga earn themselves for attacking one of us is there problem, not ours. Move out."

"Thank you," Kyo said, allowing herself a slight slouch that was as much relief as she would ever show while she was in her ANBU garb. "I'm afraid that I must continue my mission before anyone else has the chance to give chase to me as well. I won't be back for a while, so can I trust you to cover my personal bases while I'm gone?"

"Of course," Inu said somewhat cheerfully, "you should be moving along now. Wouldn't want to be late, would you?"

Kyo merely smiled behind her mask and disappeared, quickly taking to the roofs and heading towards the edge of the village.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A/N: Okay, time to stop for now. I plan to have a few other things happen. Namely, I'm going to have Tenten move to Suna as well, which will end the wave of people moving because of Naruto (wouldn't her and Kankuro make a cute couple?). You still have until the beginning of the next chapter to vote for Gaara's mate, and unless you do, it looks like Haku is the winner. Also, do you want me to write one more chapter detailing Kyo settling down in Suna and Tenten moving, or is it alright with you if I just skip to the last days before Naruto and his team graduate?

_The Wandering Scribe_


	7. Out of the Frying Pan

_The Desert Fox_

A/N: Welcome to chapter 7. The poll is closed, Gaara will be paired with Haku, who will be female. A little question for you, do you think Zabuza is still going to die? Why or why not?

-Begin-

"Dad," Tenten said after she came home from school one day, "why can't we go with Naruto? None of the people in my class like me. At least when he was here I had someone I could talk to."

"I told you Tenten," her dad replied, "your mom and I have a store here, we can't just pick up and move like that. I tell you what; I'll make you a deal. In two years if you are the best in your class in weapons _and_ you can forge a katana then we'll move if you still want to. Until then, keep your mind on your schooling and focus on becoming a ninja. If you want to be taken serious as a female ninja you can't afford any distractions."

"Yes, father," Tenten replied, disappointed that once again he wouldn't let her move like Naruto and Anko had. At least this time she had got him to allow her a way to get him to move. "In two years I'll show you that I can make a katana and then you'll have to keep your word."

"Only if you're the top weapons user in your class," her father chuckled, knowing that in two years she wouldn't want to drop her life here to move to another village because of one kid anymore. All she needed to do was make some more friends her age in the village.

-break-

"What brings you to my office, ANBU-san?" The Kazekage stared interestedly at the ANBU operative standing before him wearing a wolf mask.

"I have a request approved by Hokage-sama to be transferred into your village, Kazekage-sama," Kyo replied, holding out a scroll.

"I see," the Kazekage took the scroll and read over it, before closing it and looking back up at her. "And pray tell, why is it that the Hokage has seen fit to bless me with so many of his ninja? Especially two Uchiha and an ANBU member?"

"It was not his choice except with me," Kyo replied. "The two Uchiha fled after a massacre that wiped out most of their clan, as I'm sure you've heard. The other two that came came because they were being discriminated against by the villagers and Anko-san was tired of having to fear for her son's life."

"What about you?" The Kazekage stared intently at her, as if he believed that he could make her melt away into a pile of sludge if he stared hard enough. "Why have you left?"

"I left because my brother was in the group of people who came," Kyo replied, perfectly composed under the leader's gaze.

"I see," the man replied, "I will allow your entrance into the village, but you will only be given the rank of jounin for the first year of your stay here. After that if you wish to enter the ANBU of our village you will have to sign a three year contract and start at the bottom of the ladder."

"Thank you, Kazekage-sama," Kyo replied, bowing to him.

"Now before you leave," the Kazekage stated, "take off your mask."

Kyo didn't really want to take off her mask in front of the man and reveal that she was a Hyuuga, a fact that she would have no way to hide short of a genjutsu, which he would obviously feel if she tried to cast. Nothing else to do, she simply reached up and removed her mask, slowly bringing it down and fastening it to her belt. Her face remained blank as she saw his eyes widening.

"You- Very well," the Kage said, quickly regaining his composure. He couldn't believe his luck! Two Uchiha, a Jinchuuriki, and a Hyuuga in one month, and as a bonus his son hadn't killed anyone since the Jinchuuriki had arrived. It was settled, first, he would get this woman some place to stay, and then, he would celebrate. "We actually have a place open on the outside of town for you to stay if you don't mind that."

"That will be fine," Kyo replied.

"Very well," the Kazekage concluded, reaching down into his desk and shuffling through it for a moment before pulling out a folder and a hitai-ate. "Here is your forehead protector as well as keys and a contract for the house you'll be staying in. Bring it to administration signed at your earliest convenience. Welcome to Sunagakure no Sato."

-break-

_Four years later, the day before graduation for Naruto's class._

"Okay," Kayla whispered hiding behind one of the pillars that held up the porch in front of the academy, "you remember the plan, right? Here he comes, Naruto, go distract him; Gaara, get that nail polish remover ready."

"Hey, Yoshiro-sensei," Naruto called, walking up to his principal. "Akemi-chan said that you hide a dagger in that spike in your hair, is it true?"

"What?" the man replied, his voice still carrying that same melodic tune that earned him the nickname rocker-sensei. "That's preposterous, why I-"

Before he could finish, Gaara, who'd crept out behind him, soaked his head with a bottle of nail polish remover, and as he turned around to see who had soaked his head, Kayla sprung out from behind her pillar, now safely out of his visual range, and blasted him with a weak suiton jutsu. He was so surprised at this second attack that he lost his balance and was bowled over by the blast.

"The hairdo has been defeated!" Naruto cried victoriously, turning and running off towards the auditorium, where the principal was supposed to be giving his speech to the graduates, followed quickly by Kayla and Gaara.

-break-

"Has anyone seen Gaara and his friends?" Temari asked to those sitting on the bleachers around her.

"Who cares where those brats are," Kankuro replied, "they probably got into trouble again. I mean, they are always doing something to get themselves in detention. If the school had them cleaning instead of sitting in a room for detention they wouldn't even need a janitorial staff anymore."

"You're no better than they are," Tenten countered, whacking him upside the head. "How many times have I caught you peeking in the women's bath house?"

"Hey, that's different," Kankuro said, waving his hand in the air defensively. "Their pranks are just childish jokes, that's something that men do." This, of course, earned him a punch to the head from Temari as well.

"Being a hopeless pervert is not the sign of being a man," Temari said frustratedly.

"Hey, what did we miss?" Naruto asked, taking a seat right in front of Temari.

"Just Kankuro being an idiot," Tenten answered.

"Where were you three?" Temari asked, looking down at them suspiciously.

Before any of them could answer, though, the principal stormed into the room and onto the stage, his hair soaked and in disarray. "I had called you all here to congratulate you all on passing all four years of the academy and graduating, but since Naruto and his friends wanted to ambush me on my way into the school this morning, I am announcing a graduation test. You will be divided into two groups, and the last ones standing will be the ones to graduate. Naruto and his friends will be one team, and everyone else will be the other."

"What?" Tenten asked in shock. "He can't do that!"

"Sorry brat," Kankuro laughed, "looks like you won't become a gennin this year after all."

"Oh no you don't," Temari retorted, standing up. "Principal Yoshiro, Kankuro and I wish to be on Naruto's team as well."

"I what?" Kankuro shouted, glaring at his sister, who didn't even spare a glance in his direction.

"I want to be on Naruto's team as well,"Tenten shouted, standing up as well

"Does anyone else wish to side with this delinquent?" The principal asked the small crowd. When no one else spoke up, he continued. "Everyone out to the training grounds then! The last group standing will be the graduating class."

"What the hell did you do that for?" Kankuro growled. "Now we're going to have to fight everyone in our class or we will be stuck here another year!"

"Quiet, Kankuro," Temari replied, "this was obviously an attempt to keep them from graduating, and I'm not going to let Naruto and my brother fail because they wanted to pull a stupid prank on their last day here."

"Hey, they were stupid enough to do the crime," Kankuro countered, "let them pay the price."

"I'll remember that next time you go nosing around the women's bath house," Temari said coolly. "Until then, unless you want to fail,we've got to follow everyone else out to the training yard."

-break-

"All right," the principal called out when all eighteen of the final year students were in the training grounds behind the school. "Here are the rules: no killing blows, the last group standing wins. Begin!"

"Just great," Kankuro complained, pulling his puppet, Karasu, off of his back. "Now we have to clean up after your mess."

"If you don't like it," Gaara stated, "I'm sure the principal will let you change sides."

"No," Temari said, taking out her battle fan, "we're in this together. We either all win together or we all go back for another year."

They didn't have any longer to talk, though, as half of the group rushed forward towards them, weapons drawn. Tenten was the first to act, throwing two handfuls of shuriken towards the group, but Temari wasn't far behind with a blast of wind from her fan that both knocked the group back and increased the power of Tenten's weapons. The result was that four of the weaker gennin hopefuls were knocked out of the match immediately, and the rest knew to be much more careful.

"That's our cue," Naruto said, running towards the group, hands glowing blue with chakra.

Flashback no Jutsu

"Hey, Kyo-nee-chan," Naruto called out to his surrogate sister, walking up to her as she was entering the training area for her afternoon training. "Can you help me out with something?"

"Sure, what is it, Naru-chan?"

"Well, I want to learn taijutsu, but mom says that the only style that she knows uses summoned snakes a lot, and since I can't summon yet I wouldn't be any good at it. Could you teach me taijutsu?"

Kyo paused to think this over. "Well, the only style that I know is the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist Style. You could technically learn it, but with out the Byakugan you'd never truly be able to master it."

"It doesn't matter," Naruto pleaded, "I could make it work. You're the only one who could teach me. Kayla said that Itachi-san is teaching her his clan style, but ."

"Well, it isn't that bad for the Gentle Fist," Kyo mused, "you just wouldn't see the tenketsu, which means that you wouldn't be able to use the more advanced moves in the style. You would have to find something else to fill those gaps if you wanted to perfect it. There isn't even any guarantee that you wouldn't have to learn a different style later on to fight advanced opponents. In fact, I have another idea for something to teach you. I don't think it is right to teach you something that you have no hope of truly mastering."

"Aw," Naruto groaned. "I can do it. It doesn't matter if I don't have your eyes."

"Calm down," Kyo replied, "or do you not want me to teach you the other style I had in mind? One that could destroy a tree with a single punch?"

"Really?" Naruto asked, his eyes lighting up. "What is it? Teach it to me, please!"

"Okay," Kyo replied, grinning. "I'll teach you this technique, but the first thing that you have to work on before you can even start is chakra control. Without that, you would only hurt yourself if you tried using this. Also, I want you to start working out. It'll do you no good at all if you are only as good as your chakra reserves."

Flashback no Jutsu Kai

Naruto ducked underneath the strike of one student that ran up to meet him and struck him in the stomach. The student doubled over in pain from the force of the blow, and Naruto followed it up with a palm strike to the jaw, channeling chakra into his muscles as Kyo had taught him. He wasn't particularly adept at it yet, even with years of practice, but the ability to artificially enhance his strength was one that came in handy a lot. Looking at the student he had just put down, Naruto cringed. It wasn't a killing blow, but he didn't think that the kid was going to be getting up any time soon.

Meanwhile, another student was readying a jutsu to send a large blast of fire at Naruto, but the blast was intercepted by Gaara's sand, which overtook the student's position, forcing him to run to avoid getting swallowed up. Several of the remaining students threw weapons at him, but much to their dismay, they found that his sand blocked everything they threw at him without fail. While they were distracted, Temari send another wave of wind at them, knocking down two more, who would get up to find themselves face to face with a life sized puppet wearing tattered robes.

"Say hello to Karasu," Kankuro said with a grin. The puppet opened its mouth and shot two spikes out at them, which they narrowly dodged, followed by six kunai, of which two managed to land in their arms or legs. While they were tending to their wounds, Karasu belched out a huge cloud of green smoke which they found to be knockout gas when they breathed in.

"What are you," one of them asked as he fell to the ground.

Meanwhile, Kayla had jumped in to engage a student who was trying to sneak up behind Kankuro. She had caught the student off guard, hitting him in the face with an electrified punch, but he had still gotten back up. Before Kayla could stop him, he made five hand seals, and spikes of sand started shooting out of the ground at her. She quickly backpedaled, barely managing to avoid being impaled by the spikes. When they stopped, she dodged around them and went to meet him in close range combat again. He dodged one of her punches, but she turned it into an elbow at the last moment and caught him in the throat with it. As he was sputtering and trying to right himself, Kayla came around and dealt him another punch to the head, followed by a weak electrified palm, knocking him out.

Naruto looked around for a student that wasn't being engaged in battle already, then rushed forward. "Suna bunshin no Jutsu" he called, forming a sand clone on either side of him. When the student started rushing forward to face him, Naruto called out "Oiroke no Jutsu", transforming him and his two clones into well endowed women. The surprised student stumbled in his charge, and that was all Naruto needed to spring forward and land a strength enhanced palm strike to the chest, sending the kid flying into a training log behind him.

"Who's next?" Gaara asked, looking from the unconscious student that he had been fighting to the few students that were left. They both turned to run, but one wasn't fast enough and got his leg snared by Gaara's sand. The student was spun around in the air a few times before being launched upwards, and when he got low enough, the sand would slam into him and start the process over again, until finally Gaara allowed him to drop to the ground.

"Oh no you don't," Tenten growled, throwing kunai after kunai at the student who had managed to escape from Gaara. "I'm not going to be the only one who isn't going to fight in this match."

Already the student was wondering if he would have been better off with Gaara, as his arms and legs were now riddled with kunai that had lodged in his limbs or scratched from ones he'd barely managed to dodge. As Tenten kept throwing more pointy sharp projectiles in his direction, he never even noticed Temari's fan coming around like a club aimed at his head.

"Alright," Temari called out to the principal, "we've played your game. You won't be able to stop us from graduating, even if you do try to pair the whole class up against us."

"So I see," the principal said, slowly clapping. "You six put on an excellent show. That shows that your spirits are first class. It wouldn't have mattered if all of you had graduated, though. The majority of your teams would have been eliminated by your jounin sensei and sent back to the academy for retraining. Follow me and I will give you each your hitai-ate."

"You mean we still have to go through another test?" Naruto groaned at the thought of having to take tests even after he'd left school.

"You would have, but seeing as there are only two teams left, I don't think they have a choice but to take you," the principal explained. "The daimyo expects a certain number of teams to come out of the academy each year."

The six of them followed him as he went by the nurse's office to inform her of the injured students in the training grounds, then to his office.

"Congratulations," he said once they were all wearing their headbands, "you six are now the newest gennin in Sunagakure. Report to your homeroom teacher tomorrow to meet your senseis from here out. You all are dismissed, now go home and get some rest."

-break-

"Hey," Naruto said as they were walking away from the academy, "want to get something to eat before we go home? We usually aren't supposed to be home for a couple more hours anyway."

"Sure," Tenten agreed. "Come on, Kankuro, you're going too."

"Yeah, I guess we could go," Kankuro stated, "it's not like we didn't skip lunch because of the principal and his tests."

With the general sentiment to go to lunch agreed upon, they headed to their favorite restaurant, a small red building that had more seats than it looked from the outside like it should fit and the words "Shadow Cuisine" written on the outside of it.

"Welcome to Shadow Cuisine," the voice that came from everywhere at once greeted them.

In the four years he had been going to the restaurant, Naruto had still not figured out which one of the two were talking. Any time he would ask, the voice would just say 'that would be me'.

"Would you guys like your usual?" it asked. Looking behind the counter, Naruto noticed that both girls were smiling at them, obviously amused at the reactions everyone gave when they used the genjutsu technique to hide the direction their voices were coming from.

"Yeah," Kayla replied.

"So," Kankuro started, obviously about to make some boast, if the tone of his voice was any indication. "You two ladies are looking at the six newest gennin in the village."

"Oh, congratulations," a different voice said, still under the genjutsu. "Keep working at it and you'll be up here with the rest of us in no time. Come back when you get your first C-Ranked mission and we'll have something for you."

"Oh, really?" Naruto asked.

"Yup," the first voice answered, "but you'll have to wait until then to see what it is."

The blonde girl disappeared into the back to get to work on their food, while the silver haired girl was doing something under the counter that they couldn't see. With them going back to work, the conversation turned back to the six gennin.

"Thanks for helping us back there," Kayla said, turning to Temari. "We wouldn't have passed if you hadn't agreed to help us."

"It was nothing," Temari said dismissively. "Besides, we couldn't let our friends fail because the principal was mad at them and wanted to cheat them. Also, I bet that Gaara's sand could have taken most of them out even without our help."

"She's right," Gaara agreed, "but it was still nice to fight with you and not against you. You three are tough to beat when you are working together. That's why we won instead of them. We worked together and covered each other's backs while they each did their own thing."

"Besides," Kankuro cut in, "we were just too good for them."

"Shut up, Kankuro," Tenten said, bursting his bubble, "if Temari hadn't dragged you onto the battlefield, you would have failed with the rest of the class, or have you forgotten already?"

"Uh," Kankuro drawled, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "I wouldn't have deserted you guys."

"Right," Temari said sarcastically.

"So, who do you think the teams will be?" Tenten asked.

"If they're smart it'll be us three and Gaara, Naruto, and Kayla," Temari answered.

"I concur," Gaara agreed. "Those are the groups of us that have the most experience working together."

"Skill-wise, there are only two real possibilities," Kayla added. "Either our two groups or Naruto, Tenten, and I for one and Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara for the other. That way, our team would have two close range fighters and a weapons user to back them up, and your team would have two medium range fighters that no one could get close to and a wind user to back them up."

"I guess so," Temari replied, "but I think it would be better if they just took us as we are. I mean, we've already got a lot of experience working together these past four years, why change it?"

The conversation turned from who the teams were to who the two sensei would be, and they were so caught up in the conversations that they didn't even notice the food arrive. To be fair, even if they had been paying attention they would have seen that the food had just appeared on the table, so it wasn't that hard to miss. Gaara was the first to notice the food, which he started eating without making any real attempt to alert the rest of his friends that the food was already out. Kayla was the next to notice, but unlike Gaara, she actually decided to do the nice thing and warn the others, who were still to caught up in the conversation to have noticed anything at all.

"Guys?" Kayla asked, waving her hand at them. "First of all, like I was trying to tell you, it's unlikely that we're going to get some horrible slave driving teacher, and it is even less likely that we're going to get one of Kankuro's bath house fantasies. Most likely, we'll get one of the younger Jounin who has been tried enough to be sure that they will make an effective leader but isn't so experienced that they are needed on other missions vital to the function of the village. Secondly, our food is here, and it is going to get cold if we don't eat."

They all had to agree that Kayla's assessment was more likely than anything that Kankuro or Naruto had come up with, and the mention of food distracted their attention away from the conversation anyway. They still were left to wonder, though, for while Kayla's answer said a lot about who their sensei _wouldn't_ be, it said no great deal about who their sensei _would_ be. That was just something that they would have to wait to find out, though.

-break-

"Hey, brats," Anko greeted Naruto and Kayla when they finally got home. "I heard you and your friends passed the exam today. How'd the test go?"

"Well, the principle decided to spring a test on us at the last minute, and he put like fifty other class members up against us and Gaara's family," Naruto explained excitedly. "We whooped them, though. Gaara and I were awesome, and Kayla was good too, so they were no match for us. Right, Kayla?"

"Well, our two groups worked together very well," Kayla agreed, "but there weren't anywhere close to that many of them. It was us six against the rest of the class, so there weren't terribly many to deal with. Also, they got in each other's way more than they helped, so that gave them a disadvantage against us."

"Not to shabby," Anko replied, a hint of admiration in her voice. "Reminds me of a ninja from Kiri who defeated his entire class. That was a bit different, though. He actually killed all of them, which I'm sure you didn't do. Where are your training weights?"

"We left them at home," Kayla answered, trying to ignore that bit about killing an entire class of students for a graduation test.

"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "You told us that we could go without them since it was the last week of school, remember? Why would someone kill all of their friends, though?"

"The life of a ninja is difficult," Anko answered. "It isn't something to be laughed at, even as a student. You guys were sheltered throughout most of your academy years. Sometimes kids are brought up to kill from the beginning of their lives, and Kiri bred that in their students. To graduate they had to fight their best friend to the death. That one just took it a little further. Enough of that, though. As of tomorrow, neither of you are to wear your weights anymore. I know Itachi was already getting you off of the weights, Kayla, so this shouldn't be a big surprise to you, but I want both of you to start sparring together without the weights until you get used to fighting without them. Now that you're out in the real world, wearing those things is only going to get you killed. I guarantee you the enemy won't be wearing them, and I also guarantee you he won't give you a chance to take them off."

"How are we supposed to get stronger, though?" Naruto complained, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You'll get stronger as part of the job," Anko shrugged. "If you still want to work at it, do taijutsu practice in your spare time. That'll build up both your strength and speed. It'll also help you to master whatever style you're working on. I know that both of you have been working on styles already, so just keep at it. If you're not good enough at the art of fighting, you're going to get killed. There is no two way about it. Strength means nothing without skill. Now then, get rid of your weights tonight, and before school tomorrow I want you both to have a short spar. Tonight you get off as long as you don't go starting any trouble. Itachi's mission has been extended for another week too, so you shouldn't have any work from him either."

Kayla frowned at the last part, even as Naruto was cheering, but she nodded and put on a smile nonetheless. Tonight they could rest and prepare themselves for meeting their team in the morning, and tomorrow they would just have to take whatever happened as it came. She did hope that Naruto and her would be put together, though, if nothing else. Gaara would make a good addition to their team too, but she could live with it if they decided to put him and his siblings on a team of their own.

-break-

The next morning, when they arrived in their homeroom class, Kayla and Naruto found the rest of their friends already there, as well as two faces they hadn't seen before. One was a young looking blonde man with a sword strapped to his side who looked more suited to the position of a salesman than a Jounin instructor, and the other was a woman with messy black hair who had a dead look in her eyes that seemed to overpower the small smile on her face and a wooden dog with glowing eyes sitting beside her.

"Kankuro, Temari, Tenten," the blond man called, pushing himself off of the teacher's desk. "You three are the first team. Follow me to training ground seven so that we can introduce ourselves to each other; though, I'm sure you already know each other."

The black haired woman watched as her fellow instructor left the room, soon followed by his pupils, then eyed her own three. "You three are my team," she said flatly. "Our introductions will be this. You already know each other, I'm sure. My name is Mikoto, and this is my companion, Leo. I've spent the last decade working on him and improving him, and he is my best work, though far from my only. As of now, you are my students. You will report to me as I report to the leader of this village. That means that you are to take orders only from me, even if a messenger from the leader himself says he has something for you to do. You can expect to be out for days or weeks at a time, and your family will be your last concern. I will take care of you, but I will not coddle you. It is my job to train you to be soldiers, and that is what I intend to do. With that said, your friends will be doing D ranked missions to test them as a working team for the next week. You will have no such luck. We will be doing real missions from the get-go."

The woman paused for a moment as Naruto let out an excited whoop, then continued. "As I was saying, this is your only chance to turn back. If you choose to do so, I'm sure they will find another teacher for you who will go easier on you, since you are one of only two teams to pass. If you choose to work under me, however, report to the eastern gate in half an hour. Your gennin test will be to survive a C ranked mission, and you're only getting of that easy because I couldn't get them to assign me a B ranked mission for you. If you survive, consider yourselves official members of team two. If you don't, you will have your entire next life to prepare yourselves for a retest."

-End-

_A/N: And that's our story for today. Thanks to my most recent reviews, I have decided to take this up instead of doing NaNo, since I'm late to start anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to push this story until it's over this time. Tell me how you liked this chapter, if you're so inclined, and hopefully we'll have another chapter out sometime in the very near future. ^_^ Also, the point to ponder on for today is what you think will come of our odd instructor and her wooden pet being thrown into the mix. A C ranked on the day they're let out of the academy? I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sure that she's just out to kill Naruto and his friends off. We'll just have to see, though._

_the-wandering-scribe_


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